At least 16 dead in blast targeting Shiites in Pakistan

KARACHI:  At least 16 people were killed and dozens injured in a suspected suicide blast targeting Shiites in the southern Pakistani city of Jacobabad on Friday, the top local official said.

"Many injured and bodies were brought to the Civil Hospital," senior police officer Zafar Iqbal told AFP, initially describing the blast as a suicide attack but later saying authorities were still investigating.

Shah Zaman Khoro, the top administrative officer in the district, said 16 people had been killed and at least 28 had rushed to hospital.

Civil Hospital chief Dr Altaf Wagan said at least 15 bodies and dozens more injured people had been brought in, and said that more wounded had been shifted to two other hospitals nearby.

The attack came outside the residence of a local Shiite leader as devotees were setting off towards a main procession in the city, some 500 kilometres from Karachi, Iqbal said.

Witnesses described the wounded being rushed to hospital by ambulance and auto-rickshaw, and said there were children among the dead and injured.

"We were some three kilometres from the spot and heard the blast," Jan Odhano, a rights activist in Jacobabad, told AFP.

"We rushed towards the spot. We saw people running here and there, some were crying and wailing, we could see blood on the clothes of some people."

Most of the bodies he saw were children who appeared to be between eight and 15 years of age, he said, describing torn clothing and blackened flesh.

Provincial transport minister Mumtaz Jakharani, who was at the hospital, said protesters had gathered there with some damaging medical equipment.

"The doctors are scared of the agitating people," provincial health minister Jam Mehtab Dahar told AFP.

"I call upon the protesters to calm down and help us treat the injured," he added.

Witnesses said protesters were blocking roads at many spots in the city, the capital of Jacobabad district, while Khoro, the district officer, said he was trapped in his office by "charged" demonstrators who had set the entrance to it alight.

Some witnesses reported clashes between demonstrators and police.

Dahar confirmed that the injured were also sent to the hospital at the Shahbaz Airbase and the Jacobad Institute of Medical Sciences, with some airlifted to the nearby city of Larkana.