Friday, November 22, 2024 - At least 41 people, including women and children, were killed after unidentified gunmen opened fire on a convoy of 200 passenger vehicles traveling through a remote area of Pakistan.
The vehicles were travelling through the tribal district of
Kurram in Pakistan, close to the Afghan border, when they were attacked on
Thursday, Nov. 21, according to the area's deputy police commissioner.
The gunmen initially targeted the convoy's police escort,
the provincial spokesman said in a statement.
Police were protecting the convoy following months of
sectarian violence in the area, which has claimed dozens of lives this year.
Police have told the BBC that 41 people were killed in
Thursday's attack and an additional 16 more were critically injured.
Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry, the chief secretary of the Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province, told Reuters news agency the attack was "a major
tragedy", with the death toll "likely to rise".
Saeeda Bano - who was in the middle of the convoy -
described to BBC Urdu how she feared she would be killed as she hid under the
car seats with her children during the attack.
When the gunfire finally stopped after several minutes, she
saw injured people and bodies lying in the road.
Most the passengers travelling in the convoy through the
mountainous area were Shia, he said in an earlier statement.
Sunni and Shiite Muslim tribes have clashed repeatedly this
year. An earlier series of attacks ended after a tribal council called for a
ceasefire, according to Reuters news agency.
Then last month, there was another attack on passenger
vehicles along a road in the region which killed 15 people.
The road Thursday's convoy was travelling along had only
reopened in recent days, with travel limited to convoys with police protection.
Sectarian violence is often linked to land disputes in the
region.
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