Negombo struggles with scale of its loss as victims of Easter attack are buried in mass graves

A father with his arms around the shoulders of his two daughters. Parents and children posing for a family portrait. Dozens of black-and-white photographs of individuals. On posters and leaflets plastered across Negombo, the faces of the dead were everywhere on Tuesday, as mass funerals were held for those killed in Sunday’s terrorist attack.

Outside St Sebastian’s church, where at least 100 people were killed, a makeshift chapel was built under a tent in the courtyard. Throughout the morning, more than 20 coffins were carried in, one-by-one, before a mass funeral service. “There are so many bodies that we can’t accommodate them all at once,” said Anthony Jayakody, Colombo’s auxiliary bishop.

At least 290 people have now been confirmed killed and 500 injured by a series of eight explosions

• Full report: authorities ‘were warned two weeks ago’
• At a glance: what we know so far
• On the ground: ‘There was utter chaos’

1.33pm BST

The Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has sent his condolences to the victims of Sunday’s suicide bombings. One Japanese citizen died in the attacks.

I would like to offer my prayers for the victims of the attacks, as well as my heartfelt condolences to the families of the deceased and my sympathies to the wounded.

Japan expresses sincere solidarity with Sri Lankan people to overcome this difficult time.

12.08pm BST

An update from our south Asia correspondent, who was near the controlled explosion outside a church in Colombo.

There was chaos outside St Anthony’s Church on Monday afternoon after a suspicious package was discovered inside the dense neighbourhood that surrounds the house of worship that was gutted by a bomb on Easter Sunday.

Police have now clarified it was a controlled explosion of a suspicious package found in a van https://t.co/wWfvpYHmeQ

National Thowheeth Jama’ath blamed but attacks of this scale require huge organisation

• Sri Lanka attacks – live updates

Sri Lankan officials have blamed a small local group called National Thowheeth Jama’ath for the bomb attacks on Sunday. It is unclear whether this assertion is based on new information discovered by investigators since the atrocity or a notice circulated by Sri Lankan police 10 days before the blasts, which said the group was planning suicide attacks against churches.

There is a similarly named Islamist organisation active on the island nation – the Sri Lanka Thowheeth Jama’ath. It is unclear if this group is the one referred to by the warning, which was based on information passed to Sri Lankan authorities by a foreign intelligence service, believed to be either India’s or the US’s.

Multiple attacks in churches and luxury hotels as worshippers attended Easter services have killed more than 200 people

• Live updates: Sri Lanka church and hotel explosions
• At a glance: what we know so far

At least 207 people are dead and 450 injured after a coordinated wave of bombings struck Sri Lanka. At least five British citizens were among those killed when attackers targeted churches in the worst violence the country has seen since the end of its bloody civil war in 2009

• Sri Lanka imposes curfew after at least 207 killed in attacks
• Sri Lanka explosions: what we know so far
• Several arrested after 207 killed at hotels and churches on Easter Sunday – live

Much bitterness and grievance remain in country where war is unfinished business for some

• Live updates: Sri Lanka church and hotel explosions
• Full report: Sri Lanka imposes immediate curfew after attacks

Coordinated bomb attacks on worshippers attending Easter church services and multiple other targets across Sri Lanka were the work of terrorists or religious extremists, a government minister has suggested.

But after the murderous wave of indiscriminate violence shocked and paralysed the country on Sunday, it seemed clear the authorities had been caught off-guard by an unknown enemy that struck without warning and without mercy.

The archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Ranjith, has urged Sri Lankans not to ‘take the law into their own hands’, after a series of explosions targeting churches and hotels on Easter Sunday killed hundreds of people. ‘I condemn, to the utmost of my capacity, this act that has caused so much death and suffering,’ he said.

• Sri Lanka explosions: what we know so far
• Sri Lanka imposes curfew after hundreds killed in attacks