At least six people have been killed in a blast targeting a school bus in the Khuzdar district of Pakistan’s southwest Balochistan province, an official said.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said four children, the bus driver and his assistant were killed in the attack on Wednesday.
Yasir Iqbal Dashti, a government official in Khuzdar, said at least 38 people were wounded.
“The school bus belonged to Army Public School as it was picking children in the morning when it was attacked,” he told Al Jazeera.
Bugti told a news conference in Quetta that 46 students were on the school bus that was hit by a “vehicle-borne Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attack” according to initial investigations.
“We have been air-lifting the critically injured children to Quetta from Khuzdar,” Bugti said.
He said it was “premature to confirm the nature of the attack” and that further investigations were ongoing.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attack.
Pakistan’s military, in a statement, condemned the violence and accused “Indian terror proxies” of involvement in the attack. It did not share evidence to support the claim.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif “strongly condemned” the attack by “terrorists working under Indian patronage”.
Sharif also offered his “sympathies” to the families of those who were killed by the “brutality”.
However, the Indian government rejected what it called “baseless allegations made by Pakistan”.
“India condoles the loss of lives in all such incidents. However, in order to divert attention from its reputation as the global epicentre of terrorism and to hide its own gross failings, it has become second nature for Pakistan to blame India for all its internal issues,” it said in a statement.
“This attempt to hoodwink the world is doomed to fail,” it added.
Authorities said the death toll could increase due to the severity of the explosion.
Balochistan violence escalates
Balochistan province, which is rich in minerals and natural resources, has been home to a decades-long conflict between the government and ethnic Baloch separatists, who demand secession from Pakistan.
Wednesday’s attack came days after a car bombing killed four people near a market in Qillah Abdullah, also in Balochistan.
Many attacks in the province are claimed by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which Pakistan says is backed by neighbouring India – a claim New Delhi denies.
Reporting from Islamabad, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said Pakistan was taking the attack on the school bus “very seriously”.
“The fact that the Baloch Liberation Army, which is a banned outfit, has normally taken responsibility for these attacks – Pakistan says these groups are funded by the Indian intelligence agency,” Hyder said.
“Pakistan and India have, of course, been trading blame every time there is an attack across the border… [but] this is not the first time an attack has taken place in Balochistan province,” he added.
UNICEF condemned the “horrific” attack on the school bus in a statement and extended its “deepest condolences” to the families of the victims.
“Going to school should never be a dangerous act for any child, anywhere. Yet this is the heartbreaking reality for too many children in Pakistan,” UNICEF wrote.
“This devastating violence and needless suffering must end. Enough is enough. Children are not, and must never be, the targets of violence,” it added.
Moreover, the United States Embassy in Islamabad also condemned the “brutal, unconscionable attack” in a statement on X.
“The murder of innocent children is beyond comprehension. We grieve with the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts are with those recovering. No child should ever fear going to school. We stand with those in Pakistan working to end this violence,” the embassy wrote.
Separatist group vows more attacks
In one of the deadliest attacks claimed by the BLA, its fighters killed 33 people, mostly soldiers, during an assault on a train carrying hundreds of passengers in Balochistan in March.
Earlier this week, the BLA promised more attacks on the “Pakistani army and its collaborators” and said its goal is to “lay the foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and independent Balochistan”.
Armed groups are also active in Balochistan, and though it is unusual for separatists to target schoolchildren in the province, such attacks have been carried out in the restive northwest and elsewhere in the country in recent years.
Most schools and colleges in Pakistan are operated by the government or the private sector, though the military also runs a significant number of institutions for children of both civilians and serving or retired army personnel.
In December 2014, the armed group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) hit the Army Public School in Peshawar, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing more than 140 children.
