Pakistan To Compensate Families Of Chinese Killed In Suicide Bombing



The Chinese were attacked in northwest Pakistan, in the city of Bisham, when they were heading to the Dasu dam, the largest in the country, where they were working.


The Pakistani Ministry of Finance said in a statement that the government will also pay 8,950 dollars (almost 8,300 euros) to the family of the Pakistani driver, who also died in the March 26 attack.


The government said the attack was planned in Afghanistan and that the bomber was an Afghan citizen. Afghanistan's Taliban government and Pakistani militants have denied the allegations.


The compensation was approved at a meeting led by Finance Minister Mohammad Aurangzeb, according to the statement.


Thousands of Chinese are working on projects related to the China - Pakistan Economic Corridor. Some of them have been attacked in recent years by militants who accuse them of looting mineral resources.


China is an important economic and political partner of Pakistan. The economic corridor --- a set of infrastructures to connect western China to the Indian Ocean, in a project that is part of the Chinese Belt and Road initiative --- is valued at more than 56 billion euros.


However, insurgent attacks against Chinese citizens have increased in recent years, coinciding with an increase in violence in Pakistan, which Islamabad links to the rise to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan in August 2021.


The corridor was forced to suspend operations in July 2021 when a suicide bomber killed 13 people, including nine Chinese engineers.