COLOMBO, April 2: Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers bombed a civilian bus in island’s restive east on Monday, killing 16 people, mostly women and children during a Buddhist holiday, military officials said, but the rebels denied involvement. The government condemned what it called a “cowardly terror” attack, which took place in the eastern district of Ampara, taking the death toll from a rash of incidents overnight in the north and east to 33.

“There are 16 dead and 25 wounded,” an official at the Media Centre for National Security said, asking not to be named in line with military policy. “The dead include 11 women, two boys and three adult man.

“The bomb was inside the bus. Of course it was the LTTE.”

The attack took place on a day when Sri Lanka’s mostly Buddhist Sinhalese majority were marking a full moon holiday with visits to temples.

The military earlier said troops killed at least 8 Tiger fighters in a series of mortar bomb exchanges in the northwest on Sunday.—Reuters