At the very least 41 folks – together with girls and kids – have been killed after unidentified gunmen opened hearth on a convoy of 200 passenger automobiles touring by way of a distant space of Pakistan.
The automobiles had been attacked as they travelled by way of the tribal district of Kurram in Pakistan, near the Afghan border, in accordance with the world’s deputy police commissioner.
The gunmen initially focused the convoy’s police escort, the provincial spokesman mentioned in an announcement.
Police had been defending the convoy following months of sectarian violence within the space, which has claimed dozens of lives this 12 months.
Police have instructed the BBC that 41 folks had been killed in Thursday’s assault and an extra 16 extra had been critically injured.
Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry, the chief secretary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, instructed Reuters information company the assault was “a significant tragedy”, with the dying toll “more likely to rise”.
Saeeda Bano – who was in the course of the convoy – described to BBC Urdu how she feared she could be killed as she hid underneath the automotive seats along with her youngsters in the course of the assault.
When the gunfire lastly stopped after a number of minutes, she noticed injured folks and our bodies mendacity within the highway.
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 highway”.
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 way of the mountainous space had been Shia, he mentioned in an earlier assertion.
Sunni and Shia Muslim tribes have clashed repeatedly this 12 months. An earlier sequence of assaults ended after a tribal council referred to as for a ceasefire, in accordance with Reuters information company.
Then final month, there was one other assault on passenger automobiles alongside a highway within the area which killed 15 folks.
The highway Thursday’s convoy was travelling alongside had solely reopened in latest days, with journey restricted to convoys with police safety.
Sectarian violence is commonly linked to land disputes within the area.
Nevertheless, 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).
