As many as 15 bodies, including those of six children and three women have been found at a house in Sainthamaruthu, located in Sri Lanka’s eastern Ampara district, Saturday morning.
“An explosion occurred late night,” military spokesperson Brigadier Sumith Atapattu told The Hindu. The “explosion,” he said followed rounds of gunfire exchanged between security forces and Easter attacks suspects, who were reportedly near the house. “We believe they set off the explosives following the gunfire,” he said.
In the preceding gunfire which, the military spokesperson said, began “around 7 p.m.,” two suspects were killed. “One civilian died, and five others were injured and taken to hospital,” he said. No one from the security force was killed.
The development comes in the wake of Sri Lanka’s heightened search for suspects linked to the Easter day serial blasts that claimed over 250 lives last Sunday.
