About 300 families have fled sectarian violence in north-west Pakistan as fresh clashes killed 32 people.
Sporadic fighting between Sunni and Shia Muslims in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan has killed about 150 over the past months.
“Approximately 300 families have relocated to Hangu and Peshawar since this morning in search of safety,” a senior official said, adding that more families were preparing to leave the province’s Kurram district.
Another senior administrative official said on condition of anonymity that “fighting between Shia and Sunni communities continues at multiple locations”, with 32 people killed in clashes on Saturday – 14 Sunnis and 18 Shias.
The violence came two days after gunmen opened fire on two separate convoys of Shia Muslims travelling with a police escort in Kurram, killing 43 people and leaving 11 in critical condition, according to officials.
Shia Muslims also attacked several Sunni locations on Friday evening in Kurram, once a semi-autonomous region.
Rehan Muhammad, a 33-year-old journalist from the Sunni-majority area of Bagan in Kurram, said he had to flee his home as clashes worsened.
“Gunfire suddenly erupted on Friday after sunset ... I realised it was an attack in retaliation for [Thursday’s] incident and immediately grabbed my children, despite the bitter cold, and told my family to flee our home towards the mountains on foot,” Muhammad said.
“The sight of houses in our village set ablaze was terrifying, I could see the entire village engulfed in flames.
“At dawn, someone shouted that the attackers had left. When I returned, nothing was left. All that remained of my house was a pile of charred debris.”
A senior administrative official in Kurram said the attacks destroyed 317 shops and more than 200 homes.
A senior Kurram police officer said that at about 7pm “a group of enraged Shia individuals attacked the Sunni-dominated Bagan bazaar”.
“After firing, they set the entire market ablaze and entered nearby homes, pouring petrol and setting them on fire,” he said.
Local Sunnis “also fired back at the attackers”, he added.
Tribal and family feuds are common in Sunni-majority Pakistan, where the Shia community has long suffered discrimination and violence.
Javedullah Mehsud, a senior official in Kurram, said there were “efforts to restore peace … [through] the deployment of security forces” and with the help of “local elders”.
However, another official said there were not enough police and administrative staff in the area, where the federal government and provincial authorities in Peshawar struggle to impose the law.
“We informed the provincial government that the situation was critical and that additional troops needed to be urgently deployed,” the official said under anonymity.
Last month, at least 16 people, including two children, were killed in a sectarian clash in Kurram.
Clashes in July and September killed dozens of people and ended only after a jirga, or tribal council, called a ceasefire. The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said 79 people died between July and October in sectarian clashes.
Several hundred people demonstrated against the violence on Friday in Lahore and Karachi. In Parachinar, the main town of Kurram district, thousands held a sit-in, while hundreds attended funerals of Thursday’s victims, mainly Shia civilians.
Mourners pray at the burial of the victims of Thursday’s attack. Photograph: Basit Gilani/EPA
The HRCP has urged authorities to pay “urgent attention” to the “alarming frequency of clashes”, saying the situation has escalated to “the proportions of a humanitarian crisis”.
“The fact that local rival groups clearly have access to heavy weaponry indicates that the state has been unable to control the flow of arms into the region,” the HRCP said.
∎