Enraged Pakistani Christians on Monday denounced the deadliest attack in the country’s history against members of their religion as the death toll from church bombings climbed to 81.
The day before a pair of jihadist suicide bombers blew themselves up amid hundreds of worshipers outside the historic All Saints Church in northwestern Pakistan.
The savage attack, which wounded more than 140 people, took place as more than 600 worshipers were leaving services to get a free meal of rice offered on the front lawn. Thirty-four women and seven kids were among the dead, including Sunday school children and choir members, church officials said.
The Pakistani Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the atrocity, vowing to target all non-Muslims until the US stops drone attacks in the remote tribal regions of Pakistan.
The bombings also raised more questions about the Pakistani government’s push to strike a peace deal with the militants to end a decade-long insurgency that has killed thousands.
Angry Christians blocked roads around the country in protest. On one of the main roads coming into the capital of Islamabad, demonstrators burned tires and demanded government protection for Christians.
Missionary schools around the country would be closed for three days for fear the bloodthirsty thugs would target children, said Christian leader Nasir Gill.
Many churches, as well as mosques and other religious institutions, already receive some type of police protection although Christians say it’s too little. A cop who was supposed to be protecting the church where the suicide bombers attacked Sunday was killed in the blasts.
Christians are a minority in Pakistan, where roughly 96 percent of the country’s 180 million people are Muslim. Sunni Muslim militants have frequently targeted Christians in Pakistan and other Muslim-majority countries because of their faith.
The blasts, among the deadliest of roughly 85 bomb and suicide attacks in Pakistan this year, come two weeks after political leaders agreed to initiate talks with militants, including the Taliban. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s three-month-old government has advocated dialogue with the groups to stem the violence.
“We will go after those who committed this tragedy,” Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told lawmakers today in the National Assembly. “We will bring them to justice.”
All Saints’ Church is part of the Church of Pakistan, which was formed in 1970 following a union between Lutherans, Scottish Presbyterians, Methodists and the Anglicans, the website said.
Religious books and shoes littered the church’s blood- stained floor while shrapnel left holes in the walls, local television footage showed. Men and women cried and shouted as volunteers carried the wounded from the splintered church building to hospitals, while relatives placed coffins with the dead in the middle of roads in Peshawar to protest the bombings.
“Those who did this were not humans,” Imran Khan, whose party runs Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told reporters outside the hospital in Peshawar. “I don’t think we should give up efforts to find those groups who want to talk. We need to know who wants to talk.”