On Friday, three bombings across two cities killed over 80 people in Pakistan.
The first blast was a suicide car bombing in Quetta which killed 14 and wounded 20. The attack took place near the office of the provincial police chief.
The bombing was claimed by both Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, and ISIS. It is not clear who is responsible.
Hours later, twin blasts hit a crowded market in Shiite-dominated Parachinar, the main city in the Kurram tribal region. The attack had killed 67 by Saturday morning, whilst 261 were injured and 62 of those in a critical condition.
The attack in Parachinar was claimed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a predominantly Sunni extremist group.
AOAV records casualties (i.e. people killed and injured) from explosive violence around the world as reported in English-language news sources. Pakistan has consistently been one of the states worst impacted by explosive violence.
Last year, AOAV recorded 2,136 deaths and injuries from explosive violence in Pakistan. 70% of the casualties were civilians.
Of civilian deaths and injuries, 77% were caused by IEDs.
Despite the number of IED incidents decreasing in 2016 compared to the previous year (from 95 in 2015 to 86 in 2016), the numbers of civilians killed or injured by IEDs increased by 19%.
The amount of civilians killed and injured by suicide attacks also increased, by 93%, despite a decrease in attacks (from 13 in 2015 to 10 in 2016).
48% of civilian deaths and injuries were caused by six incidents perpetrated by Jamaat ul Ahrar.
AOAV condemns the use of violence against civilians and calls upon all groups to reject the deliberate targeting of civilians. States must urgently address the threat of IEDs. The international community should, more than ever, seek to address IED use and seek to implement effective preventative measures to decrease their harm.
For more on counter-IED initiatives, please see here. To read AOAV’s recent report, Understanding the regional and transnational networks that facilitate IED use, please see here.
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