UN chief condemns bomb attack on Quetta

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has condemned a deadly attack on a market near Pakistan’s southwestern city of Quetta. The UN chief called on Pakistani authorities to take action against the perpetrators of the bomb attack, Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky said in a statement on Sunday. The UN secretary general “calls for swift and determined action against those claiming responsibility and perpetrating such actions,” Nesirky stated. The bomb attack was carried out at the crowded vegetable market in the town of Hazara, on the outskirts of Quetta in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province, on February 16, killing nearly 85 people and wounding about 200 others. He expressed the UN’s support for the Pakistani people and the Pakistani government’s efforts to curb the violence against religious and ethnic groups in the country.