The Chinese embassy in Pakistan on Saturday “strongly condemned” a suicide attack targeting a vehicle carrying a Chinese national in Gwadar on Friday.
The embassy also called for relevant departments in Pakistan to take “practical and effective measures to accelerate to implement strengthened whole-process security measures.”
The statement demanded the country to upgrade security cooperation mechanisms in the country to stop any such events from happening again.
In a statement after the incident, Pakistan’s interior ministry said that a young boy ran out of a nearby fishermen’s colony and exploded himself about 15-20 meters from the convoy.
“As a result, a Chinese national was injured, he was rushed to nearby Gwadar hospital where he is stable,” the ministry added.
According to the official statement, this happened at the Gwadar East Bay Expressway project in Balochistan on Friday around 7 PM, as a motorcade carrying Chinese personnel was attacked by a suicide bomber, resulting in one Chinese getting injured, two Pakistani children were killed and many others were injured.
Balochistan government spokesperson Liaquat Shahwani had confirmed it was a suicide attack. The responsibility for the attack was claimed by the banned Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), Majeed Brigade.
Keeping in mind the recent incidents, the Dasu attack in July, and now the Gwadar attack, the Chinese embassy said, “Recently, the security situation in Pakistan has been severe. There have been several terrorist attacks in succession, resulting in the casualties of several Chinese citizens.”
The statement advised the Chinese citizens to, “be vigilant, strengthen safety precautions, reduce unnecessary outings, and take effective security protections.”
China is highly invested in the Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea as part of the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is itself part of China’s multinational Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Read More: China and Pakistan will bring Dasu terror attackers to justice – Chinese Foreign Ministry
Previous attacks
As the statement said, the Chinese nationals have recently been targeted by the non-state-actors (NSAs).
In July, a Chinese individual was attacked by the gunmen, later found to be representing the banned Balochistan Liberation Front, riding a bike in Karachi’s SITE area where the engineer was supposed to repair imported machinery.
On July 14, in a terrorist attack in Dasu, at least 13 people – nine Chinese nationals and four Pakistanis – were killed and more than two dozen others wounded when a shuttle bus they were traveling in plunged into a deep ravine after an explosion on board.
What was earlier seen as an accident, turned out to be a terrorist attack as the government revealed that a suicide bomber had attacked the bus which was carrying Chinese workers to the under-construction Dasu dam.
On 12th August, in a joint press conference with the head of the probing team Deputy Inspector General, Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Javed Iqbal, FM Qureshi revealed that the investigation has led to links to RAW and NDS being directly involved in the Dasu attacks and that the Afghan soil was used for the attack.
The investigation revealed that the attack was initially planned on a much bigger Diamer Bhasha dam, but failure to do so led these terrorists to attack Dasu.
Read More: RAW-NDS nexus behind Dasu Attacks: Qureshi