At least 43 people, including women and children, were killed and more than 100 others injured on Saturday in a suicide attack carried out by a 14-year-old boy at a popular Sufi shrine in Balochistan, Pakistan.
The blast occurred in the Hub region in Lasbela district, where devotees were attending a Sufi dance called dhamaal at the Dargah Shah Noorani shrine. The target of the attack was an area where believers would perform the dhamaal.
Balochistan Interior Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti confirmed the blast, which happened when about 500 to 600 devotees were present at the shrine. Rescue teams reached the site and started shifting the deceased and the injured to hospitals. However, rescuers were facing difficulty in accessing the remote shrine.
“The shrine is located some 250 km from Karachi in the remote mountains of Uthal and our vehicles have been dispatched there to carry out rescue operations and shift the injured to the hospitals,” said Hakeen Lassi, an official of the Edhi Trust Foundation.
President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the blast. The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack through Amaq, its affiliated news agency.
