“At 9:17 a.m. (…) local time, a convoy of Chinese from the Gwadar port project came under attack from roadside bombs and gunfire as it entered the port area from the Gwadar Airport,” a spokesperson for the Chinese consulate in Karachi said in a statement.
“No Chinese citizen was killed or injured,” he said. Two fighters were killed in an attack carried out with “self-sacrifice” against a convoy of Chinese engineers going to the port of Gwadar, the separatist group ALB had indicated a little earlier in a press release.
“Severely punish the perpetrators of this act”
“The operation ended with the elimination of two assailants,” a senior police official also told AFP, adding that four Pakistani soldiers were injured. “The targets were Chinese engineers, who remain safe and sound,” he also said this police source.
The Balochistan Liberation Army, which often exaggerates its successes, for its part assured that four Chinese workers and nine Pakistani soldiers had died in the attack. Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti, senator and former representative of the interior minister of this province, indicated on the social network X (formerly Twitter) that no Chinese nationals had been killed in the attack.
The Chinese Consulate General “vehemently condemned this terrorist act” and called on Pakistan “to severely punish the perpetrators of this act and take concrete and effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens, institutions and projects”. .
strong resentment
Several attacks on projects related to the massive China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project have been claimed in the past by various Baloch separatist groups. Thousands of security personnel are deployed to counter threats against Beijing’s interests.
The CPEC is the cornerstone of a vast infrastructure project for which China must spend more than 50 billion dollars (42 billion euros).
These Chinese projects have often created strong resentment in the province, especially with separatist groups who believe that the local population does not benefit from them, with most jobs going to Chinese workers. In May 2019, the luxury hotel overlooking the port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea had already been attacked and at least eight people had died.
More recently, in April 2022, three Chinese academics and their Pakistani driver were killed when a woman blew herself up as they drove into the Confucius Institute at the University of Karachi. These attacks were claimed by the Balochistan Liberation Army, which justified itself by invoking the control of local resources by Islamabad and China.
Balochistan is the least populated province of Pakistan, but it is rich in mineral resources. Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng was in the Pakistani capital last month to mark the 10th anniversary of CPEC.