Unidentified gunmen killed eight members of Afghanistan’s Hazara minority who were working as miners in the northern province of Baghlan, a local government official said.
Faiz Mohammad Amiri, governor of Taleh va Barfak district, said the eight dead and three other wounded, who all came from Daykundi province in central Afghanistan, had been pulled out of a vehicle and shot on Friday.
He blamed the Taliban, which controls the district where the incident occurred but the insurgent movement denied any involvement.
“The people working in this mine had our permission and we had good relations,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. “They hadn’t created any problems.”
He blamed “arbakis” or members of informal local militias, in the area for the killings.
Hazaras are a Persian-speaking, largely Shia minority, who have faced a long history of discrimination and violence in mainly Sunni Afghanistan.
Last year, scores of Hazara were killed in a series of attacks in Kabul, some claimed by Islamic State in an apparent attempt to stir sectarian tensions.
The incident underlines the dire security situation in the country, where government forces now control only two-thirds of national territory and violence is a daily occurrence.At least five people were injured as assailants opened fire on a taxi carrying members of the Hazara community in Quetta on Friday.
The incident occurred on the Spini road near Killi Mubarik area in the provincial capital.
The wounded, two of whom in critical condition, were shifted to CMH Trauma Centre.
Last year in October, in a similar attack, four women belonging to the same community were killed by unidentified assailants in Quetta’s Kirani Road.
Sectarian violence has claimed thousands of lives in Pakistan over the past decade. Hundreds of ethnic Hazaras, who are Shias by sect, have been killed in targeted bombings and drive-by shootings over the past few years in Balochistan.
