A pair of Taliban homicide bombers detonated their explosives outside a historic church in northwestern Pakistan earlier today, killing 78 people in the deadliest-ever attack on the country’s Christian minority, officials said.
"There were blasts and there was hell for all of us," said Nazir John, who was at the church with at least 400 other worshippers. "When I got my senses back, I found nothing but smoke, dust, blood and screaming people. I saw severed body parts and blood all around."
Survivors wailed and hugged each other in the wake of the blasts. The white walls of the church, which first opened in the late 1800s, were pockmarked with holes caused by ball bearings or other metal objects contained in the bombs to cause maximum damage. Blood stained the floor and was splashed on the walls. Plates filled with rice were scattered across the ground.
The 78 dead included 34 women and seven children, said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. Another 37 children were among the 141 wounded, he said.
The number of casualties from the blasts was so high that the hospital was running out of caskets for the dead and beds for the wounded, said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, a former information minister of surrounding Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province who was on the scene.It's a blessing to be able to attend church on Sunday morning without having to worry about bombing attacks carried out by Islamofascists. Being a Christian in some parts of the world is a life-or-death proposition. If the United States and the United Nations are serious about standing up for minority and human rights then they should at least loudly condemn such atrocities. But I'm not holding my breath...
Great blogging!
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