At least 29 people were killed and 102 were injured on Sunday in an explosion that targeted a commuter train in Quetta, in western Pakistan, which had as its destination an army residential area, police sources informed, inform international press agencies, quoted by Agerpres.
“As a result of the explosion, 29 passengers died and 102 were injured. The nature of the explosion is being clarified,” Hameed Ali Shah, a Quetta police official, told EFE.
Among the dead and wounded were women and children, added the sources cited by Xinhua.
As informed by the authorities, it is believed that the explosion took place on the railway lines near the level crossing at Chaman Phatak, a railway junction located in the capital of Balochistan province, about 125 kilometers from the border with Afghanistan.
The deaths from the suspected suicide bombing have risen to 23. The bodies have been brought to the civil hospital in Quetta, around 47 injured as well. These are only partial figures as officials are still busy with rescue efforts. Initial investigations say that the train had… https://t.co/dZueXU0x7m pic.twitter.com/HW2QIIFVF6
— Iftikhar Firdous (@IftikharFirdous) May 24, 2026
“A commuter train coming from Quetta was hit by an explosion near the Chaman Phatak railway level crossing,” Muhammed Ramzan, a police officer at the Quetta police control center, told EFE, adding that the train had departed from a military base in Quetta.
The force of the explosion derailed the locomotive and three carriages, two of which overturned, police added. The shock wave also destroyed over 10 vehicles parked nearby and broke the windows of adjacent buildings. Federal Railways Minister Muhammad Hanif Abbasi called the attack a “cowardly act of terrorism” and attributed it to “hostile forces” operating from Afghanistan with Indian sponsorship, whose sole objective is to destabilize the country.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Balochistan, Pakistan's largest but least developed province, is the scene of a decades-long armed separatist insurgency against Pakistan's central government.
The main Baloch group in the region, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), accuses Islamabad of exploiting its vast natural resources, rich in gas and minerals, without benefiting the local population, who suffer from the highest rates of poverty in the country.
Adding to this tension is the growing activity of Islamist groups such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), known as the Pakistani Taliban, ideologically aligned with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused the regime in Kabul of allowing both the Islamist TTP insurgents and Baloch separatist commandos to take refuge in Afghan territory to plan and carry out coordinated attacks on Pakistani territory.
Xinhua news agency writes that the Jaffar Express passenger train, which was carrying law enforcement officers heading home for the Eid holidays, had left Quetta Cantonment when the explosion occurred at around 8:05 am local time.
Preliminary investigations suggested that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber with the help of a car bomb loaded with over 70 kg of explosives, according to the sources.
