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Agence France-Presse

At least 20 people were killed and 48 wounded on Friday by a powerful suicide blast apparently targeting the Shia Hazara ethnic minority at a crowded fruit market in Pakistan’s Quetta city, officials said.
Body parts littered the scene and injured people screamed for help as black smoke cloaked the market after the explosion.
A faction of the Pakistani Taliban claimed the attack, which occurred in the capital of southwestern Balochistan province.
The group said it collaborated with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which has been behind numerous bloody attacks on Shiite Muslims in Pakistan. There was no immediate confirmation from LeJ.
Balochistan – which borders Afghanistan and Iran – is Pakistan’s largest and poorest province, rife with ethnic, sectarian and separatist insurgencies.
Balochistan Home Minister Zia Ullah Langu gave the toll and confirmed it was a suicide blast, adding that two of the dead were children.

Provincial police chief Mohsin Butt said eight Hazara were among the victims.
The Hazara, whose Central Asian features make them easily recognisable, are a soft target for Sunni militants, who consider them heretics.
They are so frequently targeted that they are forced to live in two protected enclaves in the city and are given a daily police escort to the market to stock up on supplies.
Police chief Butt said this had happened on Friday.
The bomb detonated near a site where produce was being loaded for distribution around the market.
“I was loading a small truck and I heard a huge bang and it seemed as if the earth beneath me had shaken and I fell down,” said Irfan Khan, a labourer, from his hospital bed.

“The atmosphere was filled with black smoke and I could not see anything, I could hear people screaming for help and I was also screaming for help.”
He said the air was “filled with the stinging smell of burnt human flesh”.
Senior police official Abdul Razaq Cheema said the blast targeted the Hazarganji neighbourhood of Quetta.
Hazara make up roughly 500,000 of the city’s 2.3 million people.
Amnesty International said the blast was a “painful reminder” of the many attacks suffered by the Hazara community in Quetta over the years, and called for the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan to give them better protection.
“Each time, there are promises that more will be done to protect them, and each time those promises have failed to materialise,” wrote Omar Waraich, Amnesty’s deputy director for South Asia.


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Pakistan

Bomb blast at Pakistani market in Quetta leaves at least 20 people dead

Members of the bomb disposal unit survey the site after a blast at a vegetable market in Quetta. Photo: Reuters

ATTENTION EDITORS - VISUAL COVERAGE OF SCENES OF INJURY OR DEATH Rescue workers move a body after a blast at a vegetable market, outside a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan April 12, 2019. REUTERS/Naseer Ahmed

(190412) -- QUETTA, April 12, 2019 (Xinhua) -- Security officials inspect the blast site in southwest Pakistan's Quetta on April 12, 2019. At least 16 people, including one security personnel and two children, were killed and 30 others injured when a bomb ripped through an open-air market in Pakistan's southwest city of Quetta on Friday morning, officials and local reports said. (Xinhua)

At least 31 killed by suicide bomber in Quetta as Pakistan heads to the polls

At least 30 people were killed. Photo: EPA

epa06909014 A supporter of Balochistan Awami Party who was injured in a suspected suicide bomb attack outside a polling station, receives medical treatment at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, 25 July 2018. At least 25 people were killed and 30 injured in the incident. Polling stations in Pakistan opened on 25 July, for the general elections convened for around 105 million constituents. Voters will have to choose from 11,000 candidates to elect 272 members of the Parliament for the next term. These elections are the second in Pakistan's history in which a government was able to complete its term to make way for another government after being ruled by military dictators for half of the 71 years of its existence since its founding in 1947. EPA-EFE/FAYYAZ AHMED

epa06908965 Army soldiers stand guard outside a police station during general elections in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan, 25 July 2018. Around 105 million registered voters will have to choose from 11,000 candidates to elect 272 members of the Parliament for the next term. The elections are the second in Pakistan's history in which a government was able to complete its term to make way for another government after being ruled by military dictators for half of the 71 years of its existence since its founding in 1947. EPA-EFE/BILAWAL ARBAB

epa06909010 A man who was injured in a suspected suicide bomb attack outside a polling station, receives medical treatment at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, 25 July 2018. At least 25 people were killed and 30 injured in the incident. Polling stations in Pakistan opened on 25 July, for the general elections convened for around 105 million constituents. Voters will have to choose from 11,000 candidates to elect 272 members of the Parliament for the next term. These elections are the second in Pakistan's history in which a government was able to complete its term to make way for another government after being ruled by military dictators for half of the 71 years of its existence since its founding in 1947. EPA-EFE/FAYYAZ AHMED

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Pakistani lawyers and local media personnel carry a bed to move the body of a news cameraman after a bomb explosion at a government hospital premises in Quetta on August 8, 2016. At least 35 people were killed and dozens more wounded after a blast at a major hospital in the Pakistani city of Quetta, an AFP reporter and officials said, with fears the toll could rise. / AFP PHOTO / BANARAS KHAN

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The blast took place at Hazar Ganji, a fruit and vegetable market on the outskirts of Quetta


The blast took place at Hazar Ganji, a fruit and vegetable market on the outskirts of Quetta.


Terrorism

Bomb blast at Pakistani market in Quetta leaves at least 20 people dead

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}The blast took place at Hazar Ganji, a fruit and vegetable market on the outskirts of Quetta

The blast took place at Hazar Ganji, a fruit and vegetable market on the outskirts of Quetta