Alwaght- Over 50 people, including women and children, have been killed and more that 100 others injured in a huge bomb explosion in a Sufi shrine in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday evening.
The blast, claimed by ISIS terrorist group, hit Shah Noorani shrine in Lasbella district while hundreds of people were inside, Balochistan's Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti said.
Provincial Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti said 52 people were killed and that more than 105, including many women and children, were wounded.
The injured, he added, would be taken to hospitals in Lasbela, Khuzdar or Civil Hospital in Karachi as there are no medical centers available in the area.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif denounced the bomb attack, calling on authorities to speed up the rescue operation.
Reports say some 500 people were in the shrine when the bomb went off.
"Every day, around sunset, there is a dhamaal (a Sufi ritual dance) here, and there are large numbers of people who come for this," said Nawaz Ali, the shrine's custodian.
On October 7, twin explosions hit a passenger train transporting military personnel as it was passing the town of Much, about 55 kilometers east of Quetta, Balochistan's provincial capital. Six people were killed. The separatist Baloch Liberation Army claimed the attack.
Pakistan’s restive and mineral-rich Balochistan province is rife with separatist, extremist and sectarian violence and has been the scene of several bomb and gun attacks over the past years.
