Blast hits Pakistan’s Lal Shahbaz Qalandar Sufi shrine

A suicide bomber killed and wounded scores of Sufi worshippers as they were performing a ritual in Pakistan’s Lal Shahbaz Qalandar Sufi shrine in Sindh province.

Medical workers told Al Jazeera that at least 50 people were killed in Thursday 16/2 blast, and more than 150 were injured.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the attack in Sehwan, in Sindh province, via it Amaq website.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said: “We are told that the death toll is likely to climb much higher. Hundreds are wounded and have been moved to local hospitals where the facilities aren’t in the best shape.”

Sikandar Mandhro, Sindh’s health minister, told Al Jazeera: “There was a huge crowd gathered there for the religious gathering at the shrine, and there was a very big explosion. The medical facilities at Sehwan are not equipped to deal with a very big emergency, so our first priority right now is to get help to the wounded.”

The closest hospital to the shrine is around 70km away.

Witness Nazakat Ali was praying when the bomb exploded. “The explosion happened, and everyone started running,” he told Al Jazeera, speaking from a hospital in Sehwan. “We were pushed out, there were so many people. I saw blood. I saw people injured and dead bodies.”

Haider Ali, manager of a nearby hotel, told Al Jazeera that police have sealed off the shrine. “Our security staff heard it,” he said. “There are a lot of police and ambulances around now. It’s complete chaos.”

Wave of attacks

Hundreds of people, often thousands, gather at the shrine every Thursday to pray and participate in the Sufi tradition of dhamaal – a form of devotional percussion and dance.

Faisal Edhi, who heads the Edhi Foundation, told Al Jazeera that the shrine was difficult to access because it is surrounded by narrow streets. “Ambulances have all been sent in from Hyderabad, Jamshoro, Dadu, Sukkur and Morho … about 20 ambulances are headed in to help transfer patients to hospitals,” he said as he was on his way to Sehwan.

The Edhi Foundation operates ambulance services, orphanages, women’s shelters, dispensaries and morgues in several Pakistani cities.

A police source in Sindh told Al Jazeera: “Police were present, but there were hundreds of people. There is obviously some lapse in security.”

In November, at least 52 people were killed in a suicide attack on a shrine to Sufi saint Shah Noorani in Balochistan province, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

Thursday’s blast is the latest in a series of attacks across Pakistan since Monday, when 13 people were killed in a suicide bombing at a rally in the eastern city of Lahore.

That attack was followed on Wednesday by a suicide bombing at a government office in the Mohmand tribal area and a suicide attack on government employees in Peshawar, killing six people.

Two police officers were killed on Tuesday while trying to defuse a bomb in the Balochistan provincial capital of Quetta.

 

Source: Al-Jazeera