w. . this is news a line from a wave of easter sunday bombings in sri lanka international grief and condemnation the death toll stands at two hundred seventy with hundreds more injured seven blasts ripped through luxury hotels and churches an explosion came during a police raid officials have made several arrests and has blamed villagers extremists will have the latest from colombo. is a comic actor about to become ukraine's next president results are due shortly in

the country's runoff election. connelly is standing by. shouts. this struck. the. right. i'm michael okwu thanks for joining us we start in sri lanka where world and religious leaders have condemned a devastating wave of easter sunday bombings at least two hundred seven. it's two

hundred seven people were killed and hundreds more wounded luxury hotels and churches were targeted police say most of the eight bombings appear to have been suicide attacks the government has blamed religious extremists but so far no group has claimed responsibility. so hospital in the capital colombo was overwhelmed people brought in victims any way they could to. the outside shock and disbelief at the scale of the violence. that no one expected easter sunday to end in this way but the explosion and then the roof fell on us we took the children and ran out but when i came to the hospital i saw my brother in law and some on the ground. among the buildings hit the five star shangri-la hotel in colombo. many had been enjoying

a special easter breakfast when the blast went off. it was one of several luxury hotels and a church targeted in the capital. another blast happened at a church in the town of the combo north of the capital more than ninety people died here. then shortly afterwards the zion church in the eastern town of batticaloa was devastated by another device. it's the worst act of violence in ten years since the end of the country's civil war the government has blamed truly just extremists and has warned of serious consequences for the nation. if you do the math i see this as a serious situation as destabilizing the country and the economy i strongly condemn this attack aimed at religious institutions and some hotels in the capital and. in the aftermath of the carnage in. somebody has a right to be made to spend

a few impose on the government. as a path to try to. joining us now by phone jamila national mitten editor of news in asia and journalists in colombo sri lanka jamilah thanks for joining us again it's late there in sri lanka what's happening right now after today's respect of that. high so basically the latest is that a curfew is has been a school has seen some doubts and so on and it's got to be the same technically a cry for. providing security to our fares and out all around doing all the explosion site seems that is a curfew in case. everything is clear and the government and the police has urged me not to defy the kofi and not to leave sample everything is great about that the

moment must be surreal sort of a ghost town after these events can you can you tell us more about the people authorities believe were behind the attack. yes maybe because we are such offline ago prime minister running become much said that. just now the police have thirteen people have been that extends all of the attacks and the prime minister has said that all of those. back he is now saying that the investigation please comment so find out if these will cause have had any floating links i think there's also a large supporting to national community still cared three tauranga and to come back to the pool being to these attacks. now the attacks the attacks on hotels were all in the capital colombo but two of the three churches were in other parts of the country so who were the attackers targeting exactly. where

any attacks took place on sunday morning. our main. one is in technical colombo one he's in the outskirts and. so when these attacks did happen to me get the url my face must be all was that these attacks were targeting the police. in china. that's been just reading the shock than i've time back taxes sakharov put that several flingers have been deployed at that time after going that with two more attacks one of the did business in colombo and i'm not saying the housing complex all trying kumble one of the more thieves and they were exactly making it stated to be. three of the attacks were on churches have christians felt under threat prior to this particular event. the scene

last sunday on palm sunday a. rabbit for the methodist church in on the lavatory in the central park attacked by a no clue who. had gone in and had a bash. and become one month had to come back then we need getting rest again. that was our same intensity in the contrary it wasn't that attack the pick me. x. on minority communities on and off so that the best promise on the attack was no surprise but what happened today can make an extreme shock because nobody expected such terror attacks on easter sunday you said that there have been attacks on some minority groups in the past are christians are firmly part of that only seven percent of the country have there been religious tensions in the past involving christians. yes there has been mean my not taxed carried out

against christian communities the tears that thing you see creatively the suspension against. everything i already have tax time. we need to see i think the tory keys and sometimes all over these attacks these have always been close. one of them. has been carried out king took to interact with the street you mention it's nighttime now there's a curfew on the streets very few people are out and about walking we also understand that there has been a social media ban in place camilla can you tell us a little bit more about why that ban is in place. yes when their first explosion took place at eight forty five am today morning there was

a lot of information being circulated on lost track and trace spoke. and some of these early information some of the same commission also said that they had a job to check the condition on the part of the contribution was not true and a lot of the information also was coming out because the night ingratiates him from september then my trip policy tended to urge the public to share information already from critics those filters but unfortunately this is not checked and then in the scene for mission just kept on increasing they nodded to calm the situation there was any need get vanno social media jamila national chain journalist based in colombo sri lanka thanks so much for joining us. the world reacted with shock to the attacks also on social media our digital reporter nicole reese is now joining us to give us a quick overview nicole what were your reactions you saw on the web well these terrible attacks also dominated social media platforms so many people took to

twitter instagram facebook to just share their grief and their outrage about what has happened and that also included many will lead to this for example german chancellor angela merkel she posted on instagram she wanted to express how sad she was about what has happened and also how shocked because this is coming out of time like easter so this for her was apparently a very big shock and she also said and i quote religious hatred and intolerance that has become apparent today must not win so as a last sentence or in this post also a very strong signal that she's sending out this message also went directly to the sri lankan president as i understand and then we also have donald trump also took to twitter to post his condolences and he is sending a clear message of support he's saying we're standing ready to help so whatever it is hoped they will get that the iranian foreign minister mohammad that sorry if you

took to twitter paying his respect he also pointed out i quote terrorism is a global menace with no religion and it is actually a sentiment that has been shared on social media widespread across the globe today many people saying emphasizing that terrorism has no religion and it has no nationality so that it had that it can be carried out basically by anyone any time like we've seen in this case as well and last but not least also british prime minister to resign may has tweeted she is saying we must stand together to make sure that no one should ever have to practice their faith in fear and this is also only a small selection of tweets that will men. many more with our world need to also barack obama the former u.s. president has reached out on social media saying and condemning this attack as an attack on humanity and i think that's really what many people also post it beforehand and it is really labeling it as what it is the horrifying thing is just

that it's an attack on humanity made by humans so that leaves you thinking about human kind and what we are with with all this like how we treat each other really so world leaders all coming together to show their support for sri lankans and their condemnation for this violence nicole reese thanks so much for joining us exit polls from ukraine's presidential election show a landslide victory for volodymyr selenski early results show the comedian and actor has won seventy three percent of the vote if confirmed it will mean zelinsky will transition from playing a president on television to becoming the country's real leader became well ahead of incumbent petro persian co joining us from selenski za lection event in kiev his job your correspondent nick connelly nick thanks for joining us we have been hearing all about. this this these results what's the feeling where you are

tell me a little bit about the atmosphere. it's incredibly atmosphere is buoyant i mean they were expecting this but to see that confirm the scale of the victory if these exit polls proved to be right in the first round they were very accurate almost three quarters of the votes even in regions that were expected to go fetch a pushing for over fifty percent of the voters seemingly voting for as alinsky this is someone who only announced his run for the presidency on new year's eve so in the space of few months he really has turned the political landscape on its head. can you give us the actual figures or do you not have the actual numbers at this point. so so far the polling stations are just close we just have those exit polls we expect to get more reliable numbers in the course of the night but a final count out will only be probably tomorrow tomorrow isn't it but as i said

last time around in the first round those exit polls proved to be very accurate and everyone here certainly is going on the basis that this result isn't going to change especially given the extent of the gap between such a parsing and building as a landscape. we're hearing that selenski himself received a fine today can you tell us a little bit more about what's involved in that. well this is been an exciting election campaign with lots of a lot expected ups and downs and that was just the last of those he went to the polling station and was predictably followed by a horde of journalists all trying to catch the snap of him putting his vote in and he showed his ballot with him his vote she's own vote for himself that is something that's not allowed by the ukrainian rules and the police did come and see him and he's expected to pay a fine not a very big one we expect around twenty or thirty euros but this is a signal that he himself says he's happy to pay that he is not above the law and recognize his mistake but this is being

a very very colorful election campaign with candidates giving blood tests to test for drugs to the debates on friday in the country's biggest stadium so this is just part of that excitement tension that we've been seeing of the past weeks. in a debate last week selenski said he would seek to break this system what exactly did he mean by that. so solecki is pitching himself as the face of a new generation someone to really do away with the corrupt status quo after all poroshenko and to machine code for prime minister who came in third place they've all been elected school scene for twenty thirty years and he is someone who on the one hand is known to everyone as a star of t.v. and comedy so he had no problem getting people to recognize him but he quit someone who's not associated with all that baggage and all the disappointments of ukraine's politics and ukraine's they need to live up to its huge potential of the past years so that is really his ticket not going to to.