A suicide attack leaves at least 24 dead and 46 injured in the Pakistani city of Quetta

At least 24 people have been killed and 46 injured in a suicide attack that occurred this Saturday at a crowded train station in the Pakistani city of Quetta, in the western province of Balochistan.

The attack has just been claimed by the separatist group of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), as confirmed by the Pakistani newspaper ‘Dawn’, an armed movement that has been demanding an autonomous space for the country’s Baloch ethnic minority for two decades and which for a few months has carried out a campaign of attacks of a magnitude rarely seen since the beginning of the conflict, such as the chain of attacks in August that left more than 70 dead throughout the province.

Quetta Police Chief Commissioner Hamza Shafqaat explained that a militant “carrying a suitcase” went to the station’s ticketing office, where he detonated a powerful explosive charge.

Shortly afterwards, the spokesman for police operations in the city, Mohamad Baloch, added that more than a hundred people were at the station at the time of the attack and the death toll could increase in the last hours because many of the injured They are in critical condition.

“The explosion occurred just before an express left for the city of Peshawar,” the officer added in statements to GEO TV.

In the first reactions section, the country’s acting president, Yousaf Raza Gillani, has unequivocally condemned an attack perpetrated by “enemies of humanity” and promised immediate help for the survivors and relatives of the victims of the attack.