Pakistan Easter suicide attack kills 72

A suicide bomber who attacked a park thronging with families celebrating Easter killed at least 72 people in Pakistan, with children among the dead.

More than 200 people were hurt when explosives packed with ball bearings ripped through crowds near a children's play area in the park in Lahore, leaving dozens dead or bloodied.

Witnesses described children screaming as people carried the injured in their arms, while frantic relatives searched for loved ones.

"We had gone to the park to enjoy the Easter holiday. There was a blast suddenly, I saw a huge ball of fire and four to six people of my family are injured. Two of them critical," 53-year-old Arif Gill told AFP.

"This is not an attack against Christians, everybody is victim, there are many Muslims among the victims, everybody goes to the park to enjoy," he added. "This is an attack against everybody."

Javed Ali, a 35-year-old who lives opposite the park near the centre of the city, said the force of Sunday's blast shattered the windows of his home.

"After 10 minutes I went outside. There was human flesh on the walls of our house. People were crying, I could hear ambulances," he said.

Many wounded children were taken to Lahore's Jinnah Hospital Monday, some clearly in pain as doctors examined injuries to their legs, arms and faces.

Doctors had described frenzied scenes at hospitals in the immediate aftermath of the attack, with staff treating casualties on floors and in corridors, as officials tweeted calls for blood donations.

Senior police official Haider Ashraf put the toll at 72 Monday, saying at least eight children were among the dead.

"Christians were not the specific target of this attack because the majority of the dead are Muslims," he said. "Everybody goes to this park."

Lahore's top administration official Muhammad Usman said 233 were wounded. Late Sunday rescue officials had put the number of injured at more than 300.

Earlier, Usman said the bomber "blew himself up near the kids' playing area where kids were on the swings".

Schools and other government institutions were open, but three days of mourning have been announced in Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital, said commissioner Abdullah Sumbal.
Sunday's blast was condemned by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who "expressed grief and sorrow over the sad demise of innocent lives," according to a statement by his office.

He was later phoned by his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi who said "the people of India stand with their Pakistani brethren in this hour of grief", according to state media.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday condemned the bombinb, calling it an "appalling" act of terrorism.

"The secretary general strongly condemns the suicide bombing today at Gulshan-i-Iqbal Park in the Pakistani city of Lahore," a UN statement said.

"The secretary general calls for the perpetrators of this appalling terrorist act to be brought swiftly to justice, consistent with human rights obligations."

The Vatican also condemned the attack, calling it "fanatical violence against Christian minorities."

The United States meanwhile labelled the incident "cowardly" and "appalling", while Pakistan's Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai tweeted: "Pakistan and the world must unite. Every life is precious and must be respected and protected."

US presidential contender Donald Trump tweeted "Another radical Islamist attack, this time in Pakistan ... I alone can solve."

A military spokesman described the blast as a "suicide attack", adding that intelligence agencies were chasing all leads. Lahore officials said the army had been called to the scene of the attack.

On social media Pakistanis were retweeting the call for blood donations, while Facebook activated its "Safety Check" for Lahore.

The government of Punjab province declared three days mourning.

Christians are a minority in the Muslim giant of around 200 million people, making up an estimated 1.6 percent of the population, and have long faced discrimination.

Attacks targeting children carry a special resonance in Pakistan, still scarred by its deadliest ever militant assault in which Taliban gunmen killed more than 150 people at a school in Peshawar in 2014, the majority of them students.

A military operation targeting insurgents was intensified after that attack, and in 2015 the number of people killed in militant assaults dropped to its lowest since the Pakistani Taliban were formed in 2007.

Lahore, capital of Punjab province, has been relatively peaceful in recent years. But the insurgents have demonstrated a chilling ability to continue attacks on soft targets.

In January 2016 the Pakistani Taliban launched an assault on a university in Charsadda, near Peshawar, that left 21 dead and spurred a call to arm teachers as parents spoke of fears for their children.

Sunday's blast came as the army was also deployed on the streets of the capital Islamabad after thousands of protesters clashed with police in chaotic scenes, throwing stones and setting part of a Metro station on fire.

The demonstrators were supporters of Islamist assassin Mumtaz Qadri, who was hanged on Feb 29 for killing a Punjab governor over his call for blasphemy reform.

Analysts called the execution a "key moment" in Pakistan's long battle against religious extremism. But it has also exposed deep religious divisions in the conservative Muslim country.

The protesters issued a list of demands calling for Qadri to be named a hero and the country's controversial blasphemy laws, which carry the death penalty, to be upheld.

A military spokesman said late Sunday that the army had been deployed to secure the Red Zone around Parliament as the protesters appeared to settle in for the night.
Source: AFP