At least nine police officers were killed and 16 wounded in a suicide bombing on the truck that was transporting them to southwest Pakistan on Monday, police told AFP.
“The suicide bomber was riding a motorcycle and hit the truck from behind,” said Abdul Hai Aamir, a senior local police officer. The attack took place in Dhadar in Kacchi district, some 120 km south-east of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province.
The toll could worsen as eight of the injured are in critical condition, Aamir said.
Mehmood Noteai, the Kacchi district police chief, told AFP the victims had returned from a neighboring district where they had been providing shelter for an agricultural fair for a week.
Balochistan is the large, poor and sparsely populated province in southwestern Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan and Iran. It has long been the scene of ethnic, sectarian and separatist violence.
The province is rich in hydrocarbons and minerals, but its people – some 12 million people – complain of being marginalized and deprived of their natural resources.
Tensions in Balochistan particularly revolve around the major construction sites of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), for which China has to spend more than $50 billion with the deep-water port of Gwadar as its flagship.
The police there are regularly the target of attacks by local rebel movements or the Pakistani Taliban of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
For several months, especially since the Taliban took power in Kabul in August 2021, Pakistan has been confronted with a deterioration in the security situation, particularly in the border regions of Afghanistan.