Sri Lankan officials revised the death toll from Easter Sunday bombings down by about 100 on Thursday, blaming the difficulty in identifying body parts at bomb scenes for the earlier inaccurate number, Trend reports citing Reuters.
The new official figure was 253, down from an earlier 359, Deputy Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardene said. He blamed inaccurate data provided by morgues for the discrepancy.
Anil Jasinghe, the director general of Sri Lanka’s health services, told Reuters any figure was an estimate: “It could be 250 or 260. I can’t exactly say. There are so many body parts and it is difficult to give a precise figure.”
The suicide bomb attacks on three churches and four hotels have exposed an intelligence failure, with accusations that warnings had not been acted on and feuds at the top levels of government had undermined security cooperation.