Local authorities have reported that at least 25 people, most of them Shi’a, were killed on November 22 in fresh sectarian violence in a tribal region of northwest Pakistan long known as a hotspot of Shi’ite-Sunni conflict.
The deaths in the Kurram district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province came just two days after dozens of people were killed when gunmen opened fire on a convoy of vehicles in the Sunni-majority district.
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal on November 23, Kurram district administrative head Javedullah Mehsud said the renewed clashes erupted unexpectedly and the authorities could not respond in sufficient numbers to control them.
Other news agencies, citing local officials, reported that at least 32 people had died and 47 were wounded in the violence on November 22.
Locals in the Bagan area of the district told Radio Mashaal that an angry mob of hundreds of Shi’a set several shops and homes on fire. Locals in the predominantly Sunni area claimed that some inhabitants were unaccounted for.
Local Shi'ite leader Malik Dildar Hussain told Radio Mashaal that Shi’a have frequently come under attack in the area.
On November 21, at least 50 people, including several women and children, were killed and more than 40 wounded when gunmen opened fire on November 21 on a police-escorted convoy of 200 vehicles carrying Shi'ite Muslims. The convoy was traveling from the provincial capital, Peshawar, to Parachinar, the capital city of the Kurram district.
The threat of additional violence led local authorities to impose a curfew on November 22 and to suspend mobile telecommunications services in the remote mountainous district.
Local leaders told RFE/RL that most of those killed in the renewed violence on November 22 were Shi'a, but at least four Sunnis were also among the dead.
No group has taken responsibility for the attack.
RFE/RL correspondents on the ground reported on November 22 that heavily armed people set fire to a military checkpoint in the area overnight.
In Parachinar, witnesses reported seeing dozens of angry people armed with automatic weapons gathering amid reports that several other facilities of the Pakistani Army and the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary had been attacked and destroyed. RFE/RL correspondents reported hearing heavy gunfire.
Jamshed Shirazi, a social activist in Parachinar, told RFE/RL that several government installations were damaged by the mob. "People are expressing their anger by attacking government offices," Shirazi said.
Jalal Hussain Bangash, a local Shi'ite leader, voiced dismay at the violence during a Friday Prayers sermon on November 22 and said that Shi'a had nothing to do with the ensuing violence, RFE/RL correspondents on the ground reported.
Hamid Hussain, a lawmaker from Kurram in the national parliament, was adamant that the violence was the work of provocateurs.
"We are helpless. Neither Shi'a nor Sunnis are involved in this. This is [the result of] some other invisible forces who do not want to see peace in the area," Hussain told RFE/RL.
Sectarian tensions have risen over the past several months in the Kurram district, which was formerly semiautonomous.
Seventeen people were killed in an attack on a convoy on October 12, and there have been a handful of deadly attacks since then.
Sunnis and Shi'a living in Kurram have clashed over land, forests, and other property as well as religion over the years, despite government and law enforcement efforts to build peace.
Minority Shi'ite Muslims have long suffered discrimination and violence in Sunni-majority Pakistan.