PAKISTAN: Three nurses were killed and 25 people injured yesterday in a grenade attack at a mission hospital in Pakistan. It was the latest in a violent wave of attacks on Christian and Western targets in the country.
As dozens of nurses walked out of the chapel of the Christian hospital in Taxila after a morning service, three heavily armed men ran towards them throwing grenades. The three women died instantly as the grenades tore through the crowd. It was the second attack against a Christian institution in Pakistan this week.
"Window-panes were falling on us, everyone was crying, everyone was in pain," said Mr Margif Tariq, a hospital worker. "When I came out, I saw dozens of women were lying on the pavement and most of them were bleeding."
Two small craters were left in the ground outside the chapel, and shattered glass lay across the damaged wooden pews inside the building. Shoes, scraps of clothing and a woman's hairband lay scattered on the ground outside. Two of the wounded nurses were in hospital last night in a serious condition.
Four days earlier gunmen attacked a Christian mission school in Murree, killing six adults. Both attacks happened within a 50-mile radius of the capital, Islamabad, and the authorities suspect Islamist militants from the same group are responsible. In the two incidents the attackers wore jeans and T-shirts, rather than traditional Pakistani clothes.
Pakistan's Minister for Minorities, Mr S.K. Tressler, a Christian and retired army officer, said he believed the two attacks were carried out by the same group. "It is clear that terrorists are targeting the Christian community in Pakistan," he said. "The entire Pakistani nation will have to fight terrorism."
Police said earlier this week that the three men responsible for the Murree attack had blown themselves up with grenades when they were stopped by police the following day. Seconds before killing themselves the men told police: "We plan to carry out similar attacks on Americans, and you will soon hear about it. We have no enmity with Muslims. Our targets are only Americans and non-believers."