22 Devastating Photos Of The Lahore Bombing On Easter Sunday
"We must bring the killers of our innocent brothers, sisters and children to justice."
By Nandini Balakrishnan — 28 Mar 2016, 07:14 PM
Easter celebrations at a recreational park in Lahore took a bloody turn after a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing 69 and injuring more than 300 people
The horrific incident took place near a children's playing area on Sunday evening, as most Pakistani Christian families, gathered to celebrate Easter festivities at the Gulshan-i-Iqbal park.
Pakistani soldiers cordoned off the area as television images showed bloodied bodies being covered in bags and distraught parents being led from the park by police officers.
Pakistani security officials condemned the “savage” attack and said intelligence agencies would find the perpetrators. The chief minister of Punjab state announced three days of official mourning.
Pakistani authorities reported that most victims of the bomb attack were women and young children.
According to European English daily, Khabar.eu, witnesses described the harrowing experience of hearing children screaming as families were frantically looking for their loved ones.
Doctors described frenzied scenes at hospitals, with staff treating casualties on floors and in corridors, as officials tweeted calls for blood donations.
"It was a suicide attack. The bomber managed to enter the park and blew himself up near the kids’ playing area where kids were on the swings," Lahore’s top administration official Muhammad Usman told AFP.
Javed Ali, a 35-year-old resident who lives opposite the park, said the force of the blast had shattered his home’s windows.
"After ten minutes I went outside. There was human flesh on the walls of our house. People were crying, I could hear ambulances," explained Javed.
khabar.eu
These heart-breaking photos of the Lahore attack show the full extent of the bomb blast on Easter Sunday:
The medical team, rescuers and families ferrying the injured and bodies of victims from the blast site
An injured woman being transported to the hospital by emergency workers
Image via http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/27/asia/pakistan-lahore-deadly-blast/
Heart-wrenching images of family members of victims crying and mourning the unfortunate death of their loved ones
A woman weeping while speaking to security officers outside a hospital in Lahore
Image via K.M. Chuadary/Associated Press
Relatives of injured victims seen gathered outside a hospital in Lahore
Image via Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images
Family members mourning the death of a loved one after the Lahore blast
Image via Arif Ali/AFP/Getty
A woman injured by the bomb blast comforted by a family member outside a hospital in Lahore
Image via K.M. Chuadary / AP
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaatul Ahrar (TTP-JA), has claimed responsibility for the atrocious attack, naming male members of the Christian community that were celebrating Easter as their main target
The group's spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, called NBC News from an undisclosed location while using an Afghan cell number and said it carried out the attack.
Asked whether women and children were their target, the Taliban spokesman said they were not on their list.
"We didn't want to kill women and children. Our targets were male members of the Christian community," Ehsan said. He said this was the first of series of attacks the group had planned this year in different parts of the country.
A senior U.S. intelligence official in Washington had no immediate comment, saying that it was too early to tell who was behind the attack and that authorities were looking into the claim of responsibility
"We must bring the killers of our innocent brothers, sisters and children to justice and will never allow these savage inhumans to over-run our life and liberty," said military spokesman Asim Bajwa in a Twitter post.
One 16 December 2014, the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) group massacred 132 school children at a military academy in Peshawar, Pakistan
A Pakistani photographer documents the aftermath of the shooting in one of classroom
Image via A MAJEED/AFP/GETTYThe attack - the Taliban's deadliest in Pakistan - has been widely condemned.
Describing the attack from his hospital bed to the BBC's Shaimaa Khalil, Shahrukh Khan, 17, said a gunman had entered his classroom and opened fire at random.
As he hid under a desk, he saw his friends being shot, one in the head and one in the chest. Two teachers were also killed.
All seven of the attackers wore suicide bomb vests, he said. Scores of people were also injured. It appears the militants scaled walls to get into the school and set off a bomb at the start of the assault.
Children who escaped say the militants then went from one classroom to another, shooting indiscriminately.