Pope Francis prayed for "reconciliation" rather than hatred and violence in response to church suicide bombings in Indonesia that killed 14 and injured dozens more, as it emerged that one family, who involved their four children, was responsible for the attack.
Speaking after Sunday's Regina Coeli, Pope Francis said: "I am particularly close to the dear people of Indonesia, especially to the Christian communities of the city of Surabaya, which have been severely hit by the serious attack on places of worship. I raise my prayer for all the victims and their relatives. Together we invoke the God of peace to stop these violent actions, and in the heart of all find not feelings of hatred and violence, but of reconciliation and fraternity. We pray in silence."
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks in a message sent on the Telegram app.
A second family of five, also including children, carried out another suicide bombing earlier today in the same city, Surabaya, targeting the police headquarters. A girl aged 8 survived this attack in which four police officers and six civilians were injured.
In Sunday's attack, the mother, Puji Futrianto, and her two daughters, aged 9 and 12, blew themselves up in one church. The father and two sons targeted the other two. More than 40 people were injured across all three churches, including police, and 14 people including the family of six were killed.
Police chief Tito Karnavian told journalists at a press conference that family was among 500 people recently deported from Syria after they attempted to join IS but were arrested by Turkish police.
The churches targeted were Santa Maria Catholic church, Diponegoro Indonesian Christian church and Surabaya Centre Pentecostal church.
There were at least two other attempts to bomb more churches, but these explosives failed to detonate according to the Jakarta Post. More bombs were found at the family home.
The US Embassy in Jakarta issued a statement condemning the Surabaya attacks. "These attacks on peaceful worshippers are an affront to the tolerance and diversity embraced by Indonesians. The United States stands with the people of Indonesia, and we offer our deepest condolences to the families of the victims," the statement read.
In the hours before the church attacks, national police spokesman Setyo Wasisto announced on that four suspected terrorists had been killed during a police raid overnight in Cianjur, West Java. Police killed the men after they had produced weapons during the raid and evidence confiscated included revolvers, bullets and an arrow with a bomb placed on the end of it, Wasisto said. "They have trained in order to attack police," Wasisto said, identifying the militants as members of Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, or JAD.
JAD is an umbrella organisation on a U.S. State Department “terrorist” list that is estimated to have drawn hundreds of Islamic State sympathisers in Indonesia. The father of one of the suicide bombing families was the head of his local branch.
The attacks come days after militant Islamist prisoners killed five members of an elite counter-terrorism force during a 36-hour standoff at a high security jail on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim country with more than 82 per cent of its roughly 260,500,000 people following Islam. Around 10 per cent of the population is Christian.
Pic: May 13 2018 - Vatican City State (Holy See) POPE FRANCIS delivers Regina Caeli prayer from the window of the apostolic building in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. (Credit Image: Evandro Inetti via ZUMA Wire)
Pic 2: The family of suicide bombers, pic released by Indonesian Police
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