Curfew imposed in Trincomalee after blasts

Soldiers patrolled a restive northeast Sri Lankan town after a pair of fatal bombings and subsequent ethnic clashes killed 16 people.

Soldiers patrolled a restive northeast Sri Lankan town on Thursday after a pair of fatal bombings and subsequent ethnic clashes killed 16 people, prompting authorities to impose a curfew.

HT Image

Army and navy units were deployed to Trincomalee to enforce the indefinite curfew and curb the violence that erupted after the blasts rocked the port town on Wednesday, killing seven people, including two policemen and a soldier, and wounding two others.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the blasts and it was not immediately known who started the mob violence, which left nine other people dead, according to doctors and the military.

Hours later in the eastern city of Batticaloa, another hotbed of violence, a suspected Tamil Tiger rebel opened fire on two Sri Lankan Army personnel outside their base, injuring both of them, the military reported on its website on Thursday.

One of the men was a senior officer and the other a soldier, the military said.

In Trincomalee, a Tamil legislator said he heard Sinhalese mobs had attacked ethnic Tamils following the second explosion there.