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Armed militants are holding hundreds of train passengers hostage in a siege claimed by a separatist group behind rising violence in south-western Pakistan.
The militants wounded the driver as they took control of the train on Tuesday in a remote, mountainous area of Balochistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
“Over 450 passengers onboard are being held hostage by gunmen,” Muhammad Kashif, a senior railway official in Quetta, the capital of the province, told AFP. “Passengers include women and children.”
The attack was immediately claimed by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) which is fighting for independence and accuses outsiders of profiting from the region’s wealth. In a statement, it said gunmen bombed the railway track before storming the train. “The militants swiftly took control of the train and have taken all passengers hostage,” the statement said.
The group warned of “severe consequences” if an attempt was made to rescue the hostages.
The attack happened about 1pm (08:00 GMT) in rural Sibi district, near to a city station where it had been scheduled to stop.
“A passenger train called the Jaffar Express was stopped by armed militants,” said a senior government official in Sibi, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media. “The passengers are being held hostage, and the driver has been injured.”
The train had left Quetta for Peshawar, in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a journey of more than 30 hours, at about 9am.
An emergency has been imposed at hospitals in Sibi, the government official said.
A senior police official from the area bordering Sibi, who asked not be named, said that “the train remains stuck just before a tunnel surrounded by mountains”.
The mountainous region makes it easier for militants to hide out and plan attacks.
Security forces have been battling a decades-long insurgency in impoverished Balochistan, where militants say wealth from its natural resources is being siphoned off with little benefit to the population.
Violence has soared in the western border regions with Afghanistan since the Taliban took back power there in 2021.
More than 1,600 people were killed in attacks in Pakistan last year – the deadliest year in almost a decade – according to the Center for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based analysis group.
In February, BLA militants killed seven Punjabi travellers, whom they ordered off a bus. Attacks have largely targeted ethnic Punjabis.
In November, the BLA claimed responsibility for a bombing at Quetta’s main railway station that killed 26 people, including 14 soldiers.
