Gunmen kill 11 Shiite coal miners in Pakistan

Protests took place in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province on Sunday after reports that gunmen opened fire on a group of minority Shiite Hazara coal miners after abducting them, killing 11. Armed men took the coal miners to nearby mountains, where they opened fire on them, a Pakistani official said.

Six of the miners were reportedly killed on the spot and five who were critically wounded died on the way to a hospital. "We are protesting, we are helpless, our (Shiite Hazara) community is being killed every day," Aadi Askri, President of Tehreek-e-Namaz Fiqa, a Shiite religious group in Pakistan, told the Associated Press.

Moazzam Ali Jatoi, an official with the Levies Force, which serves as police and paramilitary in the area, said the attack took place near the Mach coal field, about 48 kilometers (30 miles) east of the provincial capital Quetta.

No group immediately claimed responsibility but banned Sunni extremist organization Lashker-e-Jhangvi has targeted the minority Hazara community in Baluchistan in the past.

News of the killings spread quickly among the Hazara community and members took to the streets to protest, blocking highways with burning tyres and tree trunks. The violence was largely condemned across the country with Prime Minister Imran Khan saying the perpetrators would be taken to task and the affected families would be taken care of.

Shiite cleric Nasir Abbas said protests over the incident would be organized across the country. Political and religious leaders from different segments of the population also expressed their grief and sorrow over the killings.

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