A minimum of 38 folks – together with ladies and kids – have been killed after unidentified gunmen opened hearth on a convoy of 200 passenger automobiles touring by a distant space of Pakistan.
The automobiles had been attacked as they travelled by the tribal district of Kurram in Pakistan, near the Afghan border, in keeping with the realm’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 demise toll “prone to rise”. A minimum of 11 folks 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 below the automobile seats together with her youngsters throughout the assault.
When the gunfire lastly stopped after a number of minutes, she noticed injured folks 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 either side of the street”.
Ladies and kids had hidden in close by homes, whereas police hunted for the attackers, he added.
Most the passengers travelling within the convoy by 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 keeping with Reuters information company.
Then final month, there was one other assault on passenger automobiles alongside a street within the area which killed 15 folks.
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 usually linked to land disputes within the area.
Nonetheless, Kurram, in Pakistan’s north-west, additionally borders a number of Afghan provinces that are house to anti-Shia militant teams, together with the Islamic State group and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).