Suicide bomber kills at least 11 in Balochistan's Chalgari town
Suspected suicide bomber blew himself up in the courtyard of the mosque where children were playing.
Quetta (Pakistan) (AFP) - A suicide bomber blew himself up inside an imambargah killing at least 11 members of Shia community, including six children, and wounded at least a dozen others in a remote southwestern Pakistani town on Thursday, officials said.
The attack took place as people gathered at the imambargah to observe the holy month of Muharram in the town of Chalgari in restive Balochistan, some 170 kilometres (105 miles) southeast of the provincial capital, Quetta.
"At least 10 people were killed and 12 others were wounded after a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shia mosque," provincial home minister Sarfraz Bugti told AFP.
Hours later another wounded victim died, increasing the death toll to 11, senior security official Tariq Zahri told AFP.
Local administration official Mohammad Waseem confirmed the attack and death toll.
Bugti said there were six children between 10 and 12 years old among the dead and that some women had also been killed.
Waseem said the suspected suicide bomber appeared to be about 18 years old and was wearing a woman s burqa, an all enveloping head-to-toe garment.
Witness Bashir Khan told AFP the bomber was trying to get inside the mosque hall but was intercepted by security after which he blew himself up in the courtyard of the mosque where children were playing.
"There is blood spattered all over, pieces of human flesh and shoes are littered everywhere," Khan said.
"The people put the wounded in private cars and took them to other towns as there is no hospital here," he added.
Sectarian violence has claimed thousands of lives in the country over the past decade.
Many of the worst atrocities have taken place in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, home to some 200,000 Shias.
Shia gatherings and processions during Muharram mark Hazrat Imam Hussain s (R.A) martyrdom in the Battle of Karbala, Iraq, in 680 AD.
