‘A rain of rockets and bullets’: Survivors of Pakistan’s train hijacking

Dozens of separatist Baloch fighters attacked the Jaffar Express passenger train in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.

Quetta, Pakistan – Survivors of Tuesday’s deadly train hijacking by Baloch separatists have described how they watched fellow passengers being executed and fled while being shot at.

Dozens of fighters belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) targeted nine carriages of the Jaffar Express with rocket-propelled grenades and gunshots as it passed through colonial-era tunnels in the rugged, mountainous Bolan Pass.

The train, which departed from Quetta, the provincial capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, at 9am (04:00 GMT) for Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, came under attack near Sibi city, about 160km (100 miles) from Quetta, at around 1pm (08:00 GMT).

The train’s route makes a journey of more than 1,600km (994 miles) through Punjab to reach its final destination, Peshawar. The trip takes roughly 30 hours, with stops at about 30 stations across the country.

On Wednesday night, Pakistan’s security forces said they had concluded a military operation against the fighters, rescuing 346 passengers, and killing all 33 of the attackers. But 26 passengers, the train driver and a paramilitary soldier were also killed, they said.

There were nearly 400 passengers on the train when it was attacked. The BLA, which said it was holding the passengers hostage, had on Tuesday given the Pakistan government a 48-hour ultimatum, demanding the “unconditional release of Baloch political prisoners, forcibly disappeared persons and national resistance activists”.

Passengers who have been freed in the security forces’ operation described their hours of captivity as