Officials said all the victims were ethnic Hazaras, a Shiite minority group that Sunni extremists have often targeted.
Armed men abducted and killed at least 11 coal miners in southwestern Pakistan early Sunday, officials said. All the victims were ethnic Hazaras, a minority Shiite group that has often been the target of Sunni extremists. Four more miners were wounded and undergoing medical treatment, officials said. Officials said the events took place in Machh, a small mining town in Baluchistan Province about 30 miles east of Quetta, the provincial capital. They said the attackers had blindfolded the miners, tied their hands behind their backs, and shot them at close range. Most also had their throats cut. The bodies were found early Sunday. “Their clothes from the front were almost fully bloodstained,” Ali Raza, a Hazara activist who received the bodies in Quetta, said in a phone interview. “Bruises on bodies also suggest that they were dragged.” Mir Ziaullah Langau, the home minister for Baluchistan Province, said that security forces were on high alert and searching for the attackers.
