In Pakistan, an attack at a train station leaves at least 26 dead

INTERNATIONAL – Piles of abandoned luggage, and a floor covered in debris. This Saturday, November 9, the main station in Baluchistan, a province in the southwest of Pakistan, was targeted by a deadly explosion while travelers gathered on the platform.

“Fourteen members of the army and twelve civilians were killed”indicated Doctor Wasim Baig, spokesperson for the Sandeman regional hospital in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, bordering Afghanistan and Iran, as you can see in our video above. 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 which blew out the huge tin shelter supposed to protect travelers from the sun or rain at the Quetta railway station. Pools of blood and ripped backpacks from which tattered clothes emerge bear witness to the violence of the attack, the toll of which is particularly high despite the frequency of armed attacks and attacks in Balochistan.

And “suicide bomber” according to the police

In a press release, the BLA affirms that one of its brigades targeted “a Pakistani army unit returning to Punjab via the railway station after training at the infantry school”. The separatist group regularly claims deadly attacks against law enforcement and Pakistanis from other provinces.

He 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, engaged in the battle against the separatists. At the end of August, he claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks by dozens of attackers that left at least 39 dead, one of the worst tolls in this region.

The police say they are working to determine the mode of operation used for this explosion. “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 police officer Mohammed Baloch.

The largest province in Pakistan, Balochistan is also the poorest province in the country, despite its significant gas and mining resources, over which separatists claim control. 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 wealth without sharing it with the local population.

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