Gunmen opened fire on a vehicle Wednesday in Pakistan’s volatile northwestern border region killing six civilians, local authorities told AFP.
The attack was in Kurram district on the border with Afghanistan, where sectarian violence has flared between Sunni and Shia communities.
“This morning, armed men targeted a vehicle belonging to a member of the Sunni community from Para Chamkani,” local administrative official Amir Nawaz Khan said.
“Six people inside the vehicle were killed.”
Another official in Kurram, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the attack, which he said took place in a Shia-majority area.
Later, Regional Police Officer Kohat, Abbas Majid Marwat said that a search operation was launched during which 12 people have been taken into custody.
He further said that a large cache of weapons was also recovered during the operation.
Kurram has been wracked by Sunni-Shiite violence for decades.
Around 250 people have been killed in a flare-up of fighting since July, according to local officials.
At least 38 people killed in gun attack on passenger vans in KP’s Kurram District
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the country’s leading human rights NGO, urged an “immediate and impartial inquiry into the incident” and referred to the situation in Kurram as a “humanitarian crisis”.
The local government of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and tribal leaders have touted numerous truces between the warring communities, but none have managed to stop the violence, with feuding regularly rekindled over land disputes.
In January, an ambush on a convoy bringing food supplies to the region killed 10 people.
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