A day of official mourning has been declared in the
Pakistani city of Quetta after 25 people were killed by gunmen in twin attacks
on Saturday.
After a bomb on a bus killed 14 female students and injured 22, militants
attacked a hospital treating survivors, where they killed another 11 people.Four attackers were also killed and one arrested, officials say.
No clear motive for the attack has yet been established but a Sunni Muslim militant group is being blamed.
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Violence against women and educators has increased in
recent years, the aim being to keep girls from attaining the basic right to
education”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Statement via spokesperson
A man purporting to be a spokesman for Lashkar-e-Jhangvi told the BBC the
attacks were revenge for an earlier raid by security forces against the group,
in which a woman and children were killed. Quetta, a city of 900,000 people in the south-west of the country, has long been troubled by violence mainly targeting the Shia Muslim minority.
The city is reeling from a deep sense of shock, trying to make sense of Saturday's events, the BBC's Shahzeb Jillani reports.
'Unjustifiable'
Funerals are being planned for the victims of the attack while an official
day of mourning is being observed across the province of Balochistan, of which
Quetta is capital. Saturday's bloodshed began when a bomb exploded on a bus carrying students at Sardar Bahadur Khan Women's University.
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Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
- Founded in the 1980s, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is a Sunni Muslim militant group blamed for a string of sectarian and high-profile terror attacks
- Banned in Pakistan in 2001 and designated a terrorist group by the US in 2003
- The group has ties to other militant networks such as the Pakistani Taliban
- It regularly attacks Shia targets, but has also been linked to major attacks such as the 2007 assassination of former PM Benazir Bhutto
A five-hour stand-off between the militants and security forces left nurses, security personnel and a senior city official dead.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks in a statement, saying no cause could justify such violence.
"The secretary general notes with dismay that violence against women and educators has increased in recent years, the aim being to keep girls from attaining the basic right to education," his spokesperson said.
Groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi have carried out major bombings against Shia religious minorities, our correspondent says.
The group is known for close ties with the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
People in the Pakistani city of Quetta are in shock after Saturday's double attacks. Here, civilians are seen emerging from the hospital which was attacked.
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