Bombing kills 26 at Pakistan train station

Photo: Banaras Khan Agence France-Presse Passengers' belongings are strewn on the platform after an explosion at a railway station in Quetta, in Pakistan's Balochistan province, on November 9, 2024.

Agence France-Presse

Published yesterday at 8:13 a.m.

• Middle East

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A blast claimed by Baloch separatists killed 26 people, including 14 soldiers, on a platform at the main railway station in Balochistan, a restive province in southwestern Pakistan, on Saturday, according to a new hospital report.

“Fourteen members of the army and twelve civilians were killed,” said Dr. Wasim Baig, spokesman for the Sandeman regional hospital in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran. A previous report put the number of dead at 25.

In addition, 46 soldiers and police officers and 14 civilians were injured, he added.

The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), one of the main Baloch separatist groups, claimed responsibility for the explosion that blew up the huge metal shelter that was supposed to protect passengers from the sun or rain at Quetta railway station.

Firefighters, rescue workers and passengers are busy moving the bundles left behind by passengers under the guard of members of the security forces, automatic rifles in hand.

“Tea at the station”

Pools of blood and ripped backpacks from which tattered clothes are spilling out testify to the violence of the explosion.

Mohammed Oumer, hospitalized for injuries, was preparing to enter in the station to leave by train for his village.

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“But as soon as we arrived, there was an explosion and I ended up injured and in hospital,” he told AFPTV.

Mohammed Irfan had to go and identify the bodies of his uncle and another relative.

“When we woke up, we learned that there had been an explosion at the station,” he said. “Then we discovered that my uncle and this other relative had gone to the station to have tea. »

Photo: Banaras Khan Agence France-Presse Victims of the explosion are treated in a hospital in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, November 9, 2024.

The death toll is particularly high in Baluchistan, where armed attacks and bombings are nevertheless frequent.

In a statement, the BLA said that one of its brigades targeted “a Pakistani army unit returning to Punjab via the railway station after training at the infantry school.”

The BLA regularly claims deadly attacks against law enforcement and Pakistanis from other provinces.

It particularly targets Punjabis, who are the largest of Pakistan’s six main ethnic groups and are seen as dominating the ranks of the army engaged in the battle against the separatists.

In late August, the BLA claimed coordinated attacks by dozens of assailants that left at least 39 dead, one of the worst tolls in the region.

«Suicide attack»

Police say they are working to determine how the separatists staged the blast.

“At first, it seemed to us that an explosive had been planted, hidden in an abandoned baggage, but now we believe it was a suicide attack,” local police official Mohammed Baloch told reporters in Quetta.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif denounced “terrorists who target innocent people,” saying they would “pay a high price” for the attack.

The blast occurred around 8:45 a.m. at the central railway station in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, where passengers were waiting on a platform.

The official APP news agency reports that two trains were preparing to leave when the explosion occurred, near a ticket office.

Pakistan's largest province, Balochistan is also Pakistan's poorest province, despite its significant gas and mineral resources, which separatists claim control of.

Many of the extraction projects are financed and operated by foreign countries, notably neighboring China, which armed separatist factions regularly target, accusing them of hoarding the wealth without sharing it with the local population.