Gunmen kill at least 14 bus passengers in Pakistan’s Balochistan province

The attackers were wearing uniforms from the paramilitary Frontier Corps, provincial home secretary Haider Ali told AFP.

Gunmen killed at least 14 people after forcing them to disembark from buses in Pakistan’s restive southwestern Balochistan province, officials said Thursday.

Rescue workers and army soldiers gather at the site of a blast at a vegetable market in Quetta, Pakistan on April 12, 2019. (REUTERS)

The attackers were wearing uniforms from the paramilitary Frontier Corps, provincial home secretary Haider Ali told AFP.

The gunmen “stopped buses on the Makran Coastal Highway and gunned down 14 people”, he said, adding that the vehicles were travelling to the port megacity of Karachi from the coastal town of Ormara.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which came less than a week after a suicide blast in provincial capital Quetta killed 20 people.

Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, is Pakistan’s largest and poorest province, as well as the site of Islamist, sectarian and separatist insurgencies.

A naval official and a coast guard member were among those killed, Ali said.