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There was another deadly attack in Pakistan today.. this one in the city of Rawalpindi. Last week, an attack in the city of Peshawar killed more than 100 people. The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool spoke with relatives of some of the victims and sent this report.
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JEB SHARP: There was another deadly attack in Pakistan today. An explosion killed at least 35 people in Rawalpindi, just south of the capital Islamabad. It’s just the latest in a series of attacks across Pakistan in the past month. The largest was last week’s bombing in Peshawar that left more than 100 people dead. The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool spoke with some of the victims’ relatives in Peshawar, and he sent this report:
MAN: [speaking Pashto]
ALEEM MAQBOOL: Today, Adel was supposed to be getting married. Instead, he takes us through the narrow streets of Peshawar to the home of his cousin to pay condolences. The whole family had gathered from all over the country for the wedding. Nine went shopping for bangles and clothes ahead of the festivities but none of them came back. Fourteen year old Adnan, who now sits in his darkened room, lost his mother, father, two aunts and all five of his younger brothers and sisters. They still haven’t found most of the bodies.
ADNAN: [speaking Pashto]
MAQBOOL: “I was supposed to go with them,” he says, “but I stayed at home. I heard the explosion but really didn’t imagine my family had been hurt. What did they do wrong?” he says. “I can’t understand why anyone would want to do this.” Adnan’s family was caught up in the biggest bombing in the recent wave of militant attacks to hit Pakistan. A suicide car bomber blew himself up in the heart of Peshawar’s busiest market. Well over 100 people were killed, many more injured. Well even days after the explosion here in the center of Pashawar, buildings are still collapsing. Right beside me is one that’s leaning and it’s about to be demolished because part of it collapsed this morning, injuring more people. But the reminders of the horrors of the blast are not just in the buildings here in the center of Peshawar, but in the lives that have been ruined right across this city.
MAN: [speaking Pashto]
MAQBOOL: Schools remain Peshawar’s main hospital.
IFTAKA ALI: This is a victim of bomb blast.
MAQBOOL: Dr. Iftaka Ali [PH] takes us around the orthopedic unit in the Lady Redding hospital. He shows us many patients who lost limbs in the blast, including one shopkeeper.
ALI: He was working normally. He was doing his job there, but now he has suffered very sudden, which he was not expecting. His family was not expecting that thing, so definitely there is a psychological trauma, mental trauma to these patients.
MAQBOOL: The patients like these just join the victims of previous attacks in a city that’s been plagued with them.
ALI: This is not a new thing for us, but now the frequency and intensity has increased, so we are prepared any time to receive these patients and take care of them.
MAQBOOL: That’s what it’s like in Peshawar. People still trying to recover from the last attack wondering when the next one will be, and how this violence is ever to end.
SHARP: The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool reporting from Peshawar.
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