Daijiworld Media Network – Islamabad

Islamabad, May 21: In a tragic incident that has sent shockwaves across Pakistan, at least four children were killed and 38 others injured on Wednesday when a suicide car bomber targeted a school bus in the volatile Khuzdar district of Balochistan province.

Officials confirmed that several of the injured remain in critical condition, and the death toll may rise. The bus was transporting students to a military-run school when the blast occurred, said Khuzdar’s deputy commissioner Yasir Iqbal.

While no group has yet claimed responsibility, suspicion is likely to fall on ethnic Baloch separatist outfits, particularly the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which has been involved in a series of deadly attacks in the province. The BLA was declared a terrorist organisation by the United States in 2019.

Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Naqvi strongly condemned the attack, calling it an act of 'sheer barbarism.' “The enemy committed sheer barbarism by targeting innocent children. Such beasts deserve no leniency,” he said.

The attack comes just days after another car bomb explosion killed four people near a market in Qillah Abdullah, also in Balochistan. The province has been plagued by a long-running insurgency, with militants frequently targeting security forces and infrastructure.

Though separatists in Balochistan generally avoid targeting children, rare but deadly attacks on school students have occurred in the past in other parts of Pakistan. One of the most horrifying was the 2014 Taliban assault on a military school in Peshawar that claimed 154 lives, most of them children.

Wednesday’s attack has reignited fears of a surge in militant violence and raised concerns over the safety of educational institutions in conflict-prone regions.