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29 March 2024

Bomb kills 16 in SW Pakistan

Family members sit next a blast victim outside a mortuary in Quetta, Pakistan. (AP)

Published
By AFP

At least 16 people were killed and 30 wounded in a bomb blast Friday at a fruit market in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta, officials told AFP.

Senior police official Abdul Razaq Cheema, who gave the toll, said most of the victims belong to the minority Shia Hazara community, who have been targeted in the past.

"We have 16 dead bodies and 30 people are injured in the bomb blast in Hazarganji neighbourhood of Quetta," he said.

The toll was confirmed by hospital staff.

An AFP reporter at the site saw human flesh and blood scattered around the site, with injured people screaming for help.

A local police official who was posted at the fruit market and survived the bomb said the area had been packed at the time of the blast early in the morning.

During the early hours trucks arrive with vegetables brought in from outside the city, to be shifted by traders into smaller vehicles and delivered throughout Quetta.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack.