14 injured after Catholic church in Indonesia hit by suicide bomb attack

28.03.2021 15:57

14 injured after Catholic church in Indonesia hit by suicide bomb attack
Police officers stand guard outside a church after an explosion in Makassar, Indonesia, March 28, 2021. © Indra Abriyanto / AFP

A bomb went off outside a Catholic church in the city of Makassar, on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, during Sunday service. Police believe it was a suicide attack.

Indonesian media quoted the South Sulawesi Regional Police spokesperson, Kombes E. Zulfan, who described the explosion as a suicide bombing. One of the bombers was identified as a member of a group involved in a militant attack in the Philippines in 2018, police chief General Listyo Sigit Prabowo later told reporters.

National police spokesperson Argo Yuwono later told reporters that two suspected perpetrators were riding a motorbike as they tried to enter the church. He added that a charred vehicle and human remains were found at the scene. Overall, 14 people were hospitalized, according to Yuwono.

Wilhelmus Tulak, a priest at the church, told a local TV station that a parking attendant was burned when he tried to stop the attack.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo urged everyone to fight “terrorism and radicalism.” He instructed the police to find out if the perpetrators had ties to terrorist groups, in order to weed them out “to their roots.”

No one has claimed the responsibility for the bombing as of yet.

Several Islamist and separatist groups are active in Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country. In 2019, a militant from an Islamic State-inspired group, Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), attacked a police station in Medan on the country’s western island of Sumatra, injuring six.

In 2018, JAD carried out coordinated suicide bombings in three churches, and another the following day at the police HQ in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, killing 15 people.