A suicide car bomber struck a school bus in restive southwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing at least four children and wounding 38 others, a government official said.
A local deputy commissioner, Yasir Iqbal, said the terror attack occurred in Khuzdar, a district in Balochistan province, as the bus was transporting children to school in the city.
Around 40 students were in the bus that was headed to an army-run school, Iqbal said.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi strongly condemned the attack and expressed deep sorrow over the children's deaths.
Separatist terrorists in Balochistan escalate attacks as Pakistan grapples with a complex web of insurgency, regional tensions, and internal divides threatening its stability.
‘Sheer barbarism’
He called the perpetrators "beasts" who deserve no leniency, saying the enemy had committed an act of "sheer barbarism by targeting innocent children".
Balochistan has been the scene of a long-running insurgency, with an array of separatist groups staging attacks, including the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army, designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States in 2019.
The latest attack came days after a car bombing killed four people near a market in Qillah Abdullah, a city in Balochistan province bordering Afghanistan.
Most of such terror attacks are claimed by BLA, which Pakistan says enjoy the backing of neighbouring India.
In one of the deadliest such attacks in March, BLA insurgents killed 33 people, mostly soldiers, during an assault on a train carrying hundreds of passengers in Balochistan.
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