On Tuesday, a suicide bomb attack occurred near Besham city, northwest Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhutunkhwa province.
The incident which claimed the lives of five Chinese nationals and a Pakistani who was their driver. The attacker was said to have rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into their convoy on its way from Islamabad to Dasu, the site of a key hydroelectric dam being constructed by a Chinese company, about 270km (167 miles) from the capital.
Bilal Faizi, spokesman for Rescue 1122 group in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa told reporters that, “Our rescue team has successfully retrieved bodies of four people whereas recovery of two more people is still ongoing.”
So far, no armed group has claimed responsibility. The Chinese embassy in Islamabad or the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing have not commented on the incident yet.
Emergency and Rescue personnels said the vehicle carrying the Chinese nationals fell in a gorge after the blast and at least two bodies were badly burnt, making their identification difficult.
China is a known ally of Pakistan and has invested heavily in various projects in the South Asian country. But the safety of Chinese nationals working on those projects is often threatened by several armed groups in the region. In 2021, the bombing of a bus in Dasu killed 13 people, nine of them Chinese.
President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack on Chinese nationals in a statement by saying, “Anti-Pakistani elements will never succeed in harming the Pakistan-China friendship,” he said.