A suicide attack on a school bus in southwestern Pakistan killed three students of a military-run school on Wednesday, officials said, in the latest attack that underscores the deteriorating security situation in the region.
The explosion took place in the city of Khuzdar in restive Balochistan province and targeted a school bus carrying “a large number” of children of military officials, according to Yasir Dashti, a senior government official from the province.
38 people were wounded in the attack, Dashti said.
“The bus was carrying Army Public School children,” said Kaleem Ullah, a police official from Khuzdar.
Army Public Schools are a network of school across Pakistan for children of military staff.
At least three children and two adults were killed, according to a statement from the Pakistan military.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack so far.
Balochistan has been rocked for years by a separatist insurgency that seeks greater political autonomy and economic development in the strategically important and mineral-rich mountainous region.
Pakistan’s military accused “Indian proxies” of being behind the attack in a statement released shortly after the incident. It did not give evidence for its claims.
Pakistan has previously accused its neighbor and arch-rival of being behind attacks in Balochistan. New Delhi has denied the accusations.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif “strongly condemned the cowardly attack” in a statement and repeated the military’s accusations that India was behind the attack.
India has long accused Pakistan of sheltering militant groups that have carried out attacks across the border, including a recent massacre of tourists in India-administered Kashmir, allegations Islamabad has denied.
Tensions between the two spiraled after that massacre and resulted in a brief four-day conflict earlier this month that was the most sustained fighting between the two in decades. A fragile ceasefire has held since then.
Wednesday’s attack comes just over two months after the deadly hijacking of a train by separatist militants in Balochistan.
In that incident the Baloch Liberation Army took more than 350 people – some of whom were security personnel – hostage, killing 27 of them.
Children have also been the target of some of Pakistan’s most devastating terror attacks.
At least 145 people, mostly school children, were killed in by Pakistani Taliban militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2014 – the worst terror attack in the country’s history.
The Pakistani Taliban’s most notable target was then 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who was singled out and shot on October 9, 2012 as she rode to school in a van with other girls.