A suicide attacker targeted a convoy near Besham city in northwest Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Tuesday afternoon, resulting in the deaths of five Chinese nationals and a Pakistani driver.
Overview
The convoy was en route from Islamabad to Dasu, the site of a significant hydroelectric dam construction project led by a Chinese company, approximately 270km from the capital.
Bilal Faizi, spokesperson for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Rescue 1122 group, reported that four bodies have been recovered, with efforts ongoing to retrieve the remaining two. The vehicle carrying the Chinese nationals plunged into a gorge after the explosion, with two bodies badly burnt, complicating identification.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack thus far.
Comments from China
The Chinese Embassy and Consulates General in Pakistan strongly condemned the attack in a statement on Tuesday. The embassy expressed its “deep condolences to the victims and sincere sympathy to the bereaved families,” and assured that it was “making every effort to handle the aftermath together with the Pakistani side.”
It announced that it had “launched an emergency plan immediately, requesting the Pakistani side to thoroughly investigate the attack and severely punish the perpetrators.”
Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Jiang Zaidong visited employees of the China-invested Dasu project in Pakistan on Wednesday after a terror attack killed five Chinese individuals the day before. He instructed the project team to strictly enforce security measures, comfort and… pic.twitter.com/Az5C96sLzn
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) March 27, 2024
The embassy added that it was “taking all necessary measures to protect the safety of Chinese citizens, institutions and projects in Pakistan, and to ensure such incidents will not happen again.”
It further urged Chinese citizens and enterprises in the country “to pay close attention to the security situation, enhance security alerts, strengthen security measures, and make every effort to take safety precautions.”
Prior Incidents
This is not the first time Chinese citizens have been attacked by terrorists in Pakistan.
In August, China strongly condemned the militant attack on a convoy of Chinese engineers near the Gwadar port in Pakistan.
Last April, a bombing outside the University of Karachi’s Confucius Institute killed three Chinese teachers and injured another.
In July 2021, an explosion in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province caused a bus to tumble into a ravine, killing 12 people, including nine Chinese nationals.
In 2019, a luxury hotel near a China-funded project in Balochistan was attacked by gunmen, killing eight people. Similarly, in 2018, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) attacked the Chinese Consulate-General in Karachi. Soon after, two children of Chinese nationality were killed and three others wounded in an attack on the Gwadar port.
In 2017, ten workers were gunned down by two BLA members. The group said it aimed to express its stern opposition to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).