A minimum of 38 individuals – together with ladies and kids – have been killed after unidentified gunmen opened fireplace on a convoy of 200 passenger autos touring via a distant space of Pakistan.
The autos had been attacked as they travelled via the tribal district of Kurram in Pakistan, near the Afghan border, in response to the world’s deputy police commissioner.
The gunmen initially focused the convoy’s police escort, the provincial spokesman stated in a press release.
Police had been defending the convoy following months of sectarian violence within the space, which has claimed dozens of lives this 12 months.
Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry, the chief secretary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, instructed Reuters information company Thursday’s assault was “a significant tragedy”, with the loss of life toll “more likely to rise”. A minimum of 11 individuals had been injured, he stated.
Saeeda Bano – who was in the midst of the convoy – described to BBC Urdu how she feared she can be killed as she hid underneath the automobile seats along with her kids through the assault.
When the gunfire lastly stopped after a number of minutes, she noticed injured individuals and our bodies mendacity within the street.
Particulars of precisely what occurred are nonetheless rising, however Javed ullah Mehsud, a senior administration official, instructed AFP “roughly 10 attackers” had been concerned, “firing indiscriminately from each side of the street”.
Girls and kids had hidden in close by homes, whereas police hunted for the attackers, he added.
Most the passengers travelling within the convoy via the mountainous space had been Shia, he stated in an earlier assertion.
Sunni and Shiite Muslim tribes have clashed repeatedly this 12 months. An earlier sequence of assaults ended after a tribal council known as for a ceasefire, in response to Reuters information company.
Then final month, there was one other assault on passenger autos alongside a street within the area which killed 15 individuals.
The street Thursday’s convoy was travelling alongside had solely reopened in current days, with journey restricted to convoys with police safety.
Sectarian violence is commonly linked to land disputes within the area.
Nonetheless, Kurram, in Pakistan’s north-west, additionally borders a number of Afghan provinces that are dwelling to anti-Shia militant teams, together with the Islamic State group and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
