Christian leaders have joined in condemning the suicide bombing of a hospital in Quetta, south-west Pakistan, in which more than 70 people were killed and more than 120 were injured.
Monday’s attack, which has been claimed by both the so-called Islamic State and a faction of the Taliban in Pakistan, targeted those mourning Bilal Anwar Kasi, a former president of the Balochistan Bar Association, who was shot dead by two gunmen earlier in the day. Lawyers and family members had gathered at the hospital to accompany his body. Journalists were also reportedly among the dead.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, expressed his “deep grief and anguish” at the attack which was also condemned by prominent lawyers in the country who announced a nationwide strike of lawyers on Tuesday.
The National Commission for Justice and Peace, an organisation of the Pakistan Catholic Bishops’ Conference, issued a statement describing the killing of “innocent people” as an “inhuman act and totally unacceptable”.
Meanwhile, Peter Prove, World Council of Churches’ international director, described the attack as “vicious and reprehensible in the extreme”. “Deliberately attacking people gathered at a hospital to grieve for Mr Kasi underscores the inhumanity and moral bankruptcy of those who planned and perpetrated it,” he said.
“This atrocity, as so many before it, demands denunciation by all people of faith, good will and simple decency and prayers and support for the families and communities affected, and for the people and nation of Pakistan.”