Gunmen Kill Six Civilians in Pakistan’s Kurram District

TDT | KURRAM

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Six civilians were killed Wednesday when gunmen opened fire on a vehicle in Pakistan’s northwestern Kurram district, near the border with Afghanistan, local authorities told AFP.

The attack took place in an area where sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shia communities have escalated in recent months.

“This morning, armed men targeted a vehicle belonging to a member of the Sunni community from Para Chamkani,” said local administrative official Amir Nawaz Khan. “Six people inside the vehicle were killed.”

Another official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the attack occurred in a Shia-majority area.

Kurram has experienced decades of Sunni-Shiite violence, with around 250 people killed in the latest flare-up since July, according to local authorities. Pakistan is a Sunni-majority country, but Shiites account for 10 to 15 percent of the population.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan called for an “immediate and impartial inquiry into the incident,” describing the ongoing violence in Kurram as a “humanitarian crisis.”

Despite repeated attempts by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government and local tribal leaders to broker truces, sectarian clashes continue to erupt, often triggered by land disputes.

Earlier this year, in February, six people were killed in an ambush on a convoy delivering food supplies to the region.