9 Die in Attack on Philippine Easter Ritual

A grenade explosion shattered a peaceful pre-dawn Easter celebration Sunday, killing nine and wounding 70 others, many of them children dressed as angels.

Police said an unidentified man tossed a grenade wrapped in a white handkerchief into the crowd watching a Roman Catholic procession outside St. Michael’s Cathedral.

The grenade exploded as children were throwing bouquets of flowers at statues of the resurrected Jesus and the Virgin Mary, witnesses said. Many of the wounded were children portraying angels in a tableau depicting the meeting between Jesus and his mother after the Resurrection.

“I saw white smoke as the grenade exploded. People were crying and running in different directions. I saw the legs of a woman blown off,” wounded church aide Delfin Castaneda said.

The dead included four children. Three people lost their legs in the blast, doctors said.

Iligan Mayor Camilio Cabili appealed for blood donors and antibiotics as the wounded packed eight city hospitals.

The explosion sparked pandemonium among the estimated 7,000 worshipers, who scampered for safety, running over the dead and wounded, the Philippine News Agency reported.

“There was complete panic,” police Inspector Editho Seares said in a radio interview. “People were screaming, and some of the injured ran away.”

The assailant ran to the back of the cathedral and escaped in the confusion, witnesses said.

But police said they suspect the attack was provoked by the beating of a Muslim youth Saturday night by a group of Christian teen-agers. The youth and armed Muslim companions returned to the scene to get even, police said. One of them was suspected to have thrown the grenade into the crowd, police Sgt. Jhun Saramosing said. Officials said three grenades were thrown but only one exploded.

Before the blast, the group took two Christian girls hostage, freeing one of them later, police said. Three men were detained for questioning.

The procession was part of Easter celebrations around the Philippines, Asia’s only predominantly Roman Catholic country.

“It has shattered the Filipino soul,” said Bishop Fernando Capalla of Iligan, an industrial city 490 miles south of Manila on Mindanao Island, a violence-plagued area where Muslim separatist rebels and Communist guerrillas operate.

“I was a standing near a candle vendor,” said Reynaria Quinet, 30, whose leg was wounded. “When I looked up, I saw this object wrapped in a white handkerchief going up in the air. There was an explosion and I felt my legs getting numb.”

National Police Chief Cesar Nazareno flew to Iligan to supervise the investigation.