Emergency declared in border town amid evacuation of civilian population.
QUETTA/ RAWALPINDI - At least one person died and more than a dozen others were injured when firing from inside Afghanistan targeted the civil population of Balochistan’s Chaman on Thursday, officials and rescue workers said.
The gunfire continued intermittently, creating terror among the local residents. Chaman DHQ Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Malik Achakzai told reporters that at least fifteen people including women and children were brought to the hospital with multiple bullet wounds.
Deputy Commissioner of Chaman Abdul Hameed Zehri said that an emergency had been declared at the hospital as authorities evacuated citizens from Mall Road, Boghra Road bypass, and Border Road following the firing. Levies officials reported that multiple artillery rounds were fired upon the civilian population around the Boghra Road and Custom House areas from the cross-border country. They added that the Pakistani forces had given a befitting response to the shelling from the cross-border country. According to the district administration, the local people of the area were being evacuated after starting of clashes and an emergency had been declared in DHQ Hospital Chaman.
The Pakistan Army said Thursday that an ‘indiscriminate fire from inside Afghanistan’ on the civil population of Chaman on Thursday started that continued intermittently, leaving many innocent civilians injured. According to a press release issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), “due to the firing, there were reports of injuries including children and women.”
‘Second attack within a week’
Balochistan Minister for Home and Tribal Affairs Mir Ziaullah Langu Thursday strongly condemned the unprovoked firing by the Afghan border forces in Chaman Border and demanded the Afghan interim government take strict notice of this incident. He said that the occurrence of such incidents, twice just within a week, on the part of the Afghan authorities was a cause for concern, while Pakistan’s peace endeavor should not be considered as our weakness. Minister Mir Ziaullah Langu also asked the deputy commissioner Chaman to submit report of the incident. He also instructed the district administration to provide all medical facilities to the injured in the event. Meanwhile, Mir Ziaullah has imposed an emergency in all hospitals across the district in the light of the instructions of Balochistan Chief Minister Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo. Reportedly, clashes erupted once again between the border forces of Afghanistan and Pakistan near the key Chaman-Spin Boldak border crossing on Thursday, resulting in one death and over a dozen injuries, Pakistani officials said. Previously, cross-border shelling and gunfire killed eight Pakistani civilians and one Afghan soldier on Sunday near the same crossing, which connects Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan with the southern Afghan province of Kandahar. Thursday’s fighting started when Pakistani forces repairing a portion of the border fence damaged during Sunday’s clashes came under attack from the Afghan side of the frontier, a provincial official Balochistan, Zahid Saleem, told reporters. Saleem, who is additional chief secretary of the province, said Afghan mortar shells had landed in civilian settlements on the Pakistani side. “One civilian has been killed and 12 others, including women and children, were injured,” a local official of the Pakistani border area of Chaman said, adding that clashes were still ongoing.