At least five people, including four children, were killed in a suicide car bombing that targeted a school bus in Pakistan’s Balochistan province on Wednesday, May 21.
The blast occurred in the city of Khuzdar, where the bus was transporting students to the Army Public School, according to Yasir Dashti, a senior provincial official. Dashti confirmed that 38 others were wounded, many of them children, and warned that the death toll could rise as several victims remain in critical condition.
Police official Kaleem Ullah said the attack specifically targeted a bus carrying the children of military personnel.
“This was a deliberate and horrifying act,” he said.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Mohsin Naqvi, strongly condemned the bombing, calling it an act of “sheer barbarism” and referring to the perpetrators as “beasts” undeserving of any leniency.
“Targeting innocent children is beyond inhumane,” Naqvi stated.
The attack took place as the bus was en route to a military school in Khuzdar, according to local deputy commissioner Yasir Iqbal.
No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which is the latest in a series of violent incidents in the restive Balochistan region, where separatist militants and extremist groups have long been active.
Just days earlier, a separate car bombing in Qillah Abdullah, another city in Balochistan near the Afghan border, killed four people near a local market.
Balochistan has seen increasing unrest in recent months, with attacks frequently targeting security forces, infrastructure, and now—tragically—schoolchildren.
