The toll is still provisional and could rise further. At least 25 people, including 14 soldiers, died this Saturday morning after an explosion on a platform at the central station in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province. Earlier, police officials had reported 17 deaths, ensuring that this figure could still increase.
This attack was claimed shortly after by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), one of the main separatist groups in this region where armed attacks and bombings are frequent. In a statement, the BLA said that one of its brigades targeted “a unit of the Pakistani army which was returning to Punjab via the railway station after training at the infantry school”.
The separatist group, which regularly claims deadly attacks against the police and Pakistanis from other provinces, particularly attacks the Punjabis, who constitute the largest of Pakistan's six main ethnic groups and are seen as dominating the ranks of the army. At the end of August, it claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks by dozens of attackers that left at least 39 dead, one of the worst tolls in this region.
The hypothesis of a suicide attack
After this new attack, the Pakistani police are investigating to determine the method of operation. “At first it seemed to us that an explosive had been planted, hidden in abandoned luggage, but now we think it was a suicide attack,” said Mohammed Baloch, a police official. local. Doctor Wasim Baig, spokesperson for the Sandeman regional hospital in Quetta, reports a death toll of 46 injured.
On the station platform, the huge sheet metal shelter supposed to protect travelers from the sun or rain was blown away. Pools of blood and ripped backpacks bear witness to the violence of the explosion in this province, the largest but also the poorest in Pakistan.
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