Over 300 families flee, 150 people killed as Pakistan witness sudden rise in Shia-Sunni clashes

Over 300 families were forced to flee their homes after violent clashes between Sunni and Shia Muslims rattled North Pakistan. The sectarian fighting in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has killed more than 150 people over the past months, with 32 dying in fresh clashes on Saturday.

“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, AFP reported. The region borders Afghanistan, which is currently grappling with the horrors of the Taliban.

Another senior administrative officer told the news outlets that “fighting between Shia and Sunni communities continues at multiple locations”. Out of the 32 people who died in the Saturday clashes, 14 were Sunnis and 18 were Shias.

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How it started

According to AFP, the Saturday clashes came two days after gunmen opened fire on two separate convoys of Shia Muslims. The group was travelling with a police escort in Kurram, and the incident led to the death of 43 people, leaving 11 in critical condition.

Following the incident, Shia Muslims attacked several Sunni locations on Friday evening in Kurram, which was once a semi-autonomous region. A senior official noted that the attacks destroyed around 317 shops and more than 200 homes in Kurram. The officer mentioned that at about 7 pm “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 added. Meanwhile, Javedullah Mehsud, a senior official in Kurram, told AFP that there were “efforts to restore peace … [through] the deployment of security forces” and with the help of “local elders”. However, another police official noted that there were not enough police and administrative staff to take hold of the situation.

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“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, the Kurram district witnessed separate bouts of clashes which ultimately killed at least 16 people, including two children.

In September and July, dozens of people were killed in clashes that only ended 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.

Amid the chaos, the Human Rights Commission issued a statement over the matter, urging 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 noted.

With inputs from AFP.