Ethnic violence claims 28 lives in southern Pakistan

Aug 2, 2011, 8:43 GMT

Islamabad - At least 28 people have been killed and over 20 injured in two days of deadly clashes between rival ethnic groups in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi, an emergency worker said on Tuesday.

The violence erupted in the capital of the southern province of Sindh on Monday between the Urdu-speaking majority and the Pashtu-speaking minority, with each group blaming the other for sparking the conflict.

Faraz Ali, a spokesman for the private Edhi rescue service, said by phone that its paramedics had taken 28 bodies and 20 injured to hospital.

'According to our count, 22 people were killed on Monday and six on Tuesday,' Ali said.

The violence paralysed the economic and commercial activities in the port city of 18 million, which is also the financial capital of the country, as armed gangs clashed with each other and security forces.

Dozens of protesters took to the streets to demonstrate against the killings and torched nine vehicles and over 100 motorbikes.

Karachi saw several outbreaks of inter-ethnic violence in the 1980s and 1990s, but the recent clashes have been the worst for over a decade.

A total of 318 people were killed last month and 1,241 in the first seven months of the year, the English-language Dawn newspaper said Monday citing the police.

Most clashes occurred between supporters of the Urdu-speaking Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Pashtu Awami National Party party, the main political groups in the city.

The Pashtu speakers are mostly economic migrants from the north-west. Their swelling numbers are resented by the Urdu-speaking population, most of whom migrated to Pakistan during partition from India in 1947.