Pakistani Hazara Shia community is continuously facing the threat of targeted violence

Quetta, Karachi, Lahore, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Islamabad, Pakistan – Hundreds of Pakistani have protested the killing of innocent miners in a targeted attack in the southwestern province of Balochistan. Hazara community refused to bury the dead bodies of their loved ones before the government addressed their demands.

Protesters assembled on the highway in the western part of the provincial capital of Quetta on Monday to protest the murder of the miners, with the coffins of their families on the ground in front of them.

“He was the son of my aunt. What was his crime? Someone tell me his crime, for God’s sake, someone tells me what fault he committed?” cried out Masooma Bibi, whose brother and cousin was killed in the attack.

Shia is home to some 20 percent of Pakistan’s overwhelmingly Muslim community, and anti-Shia violence has risen alarmingly in recent years. Approximately half a million Hazara living in Balochistan are especially vulnerable due to their distinctive East Asian ethnic features and Shia religious affiliation. Hazaras have been targeted and attacked by bombers and shooters in religious processions,  mosques,  in markets, and during traveling.

Hazara genocide and virtual ghettoization by the authorities in Quetta’s two Hazara neighborhoods under the pretext of protection has cut off them from the city due to unrelenting assaults and sometimes due to security measures, pushing them to sell their businesses and to get their children out of schools.