On 22 November, a haunting video from Pakistan surfaced on social media. In it, a vehicle filled with the dead bodies of Shia Muslims sped through a crowded road in Kurram district, in the country’s northwest. A man’s lifeless body dangled out from an open door, his leg dragging along the ground, as children and young men pelted the vehicle with sticks and stones. A silent crowd looked on.
The vehicle was part of a convoy of over 100 vehicles with Shias traveling that day from Parachinar – a Shia-majority area in Upper Kurram, near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border – to Peshawar. A similar convoy was travelling from Peshawar to Parachinar. Both were under the security forces’ protection.
For the Shias of Parachinar, the Thall–Parachinar Road has been both a necessity and a nightmare. It remains their only connection to medical care, education and economic opportunities outside Parachinar, but it runs through Sunni-majority regions where Shias are exposed to brutal sectarian violence. Despite the presence of security escorts on 22 November, both convoys were attacked at three different locations by armed militants who fired bullets and even rockets. Survivors described fleeing into the surrounding bushes, hiding for hours as gunfire rained down. It was hours before ambulances were able to reach them.
A 17-year-old student who survived the attack shared his harrowing experience. He was traveling from Peshawar to Parachinar when, at the Shia-populated town of Alizai, “the call to prayer started from a mosque, and immediately after, the firing began. We hid under the seats as continuous gunfire rained down for half an hour. The attackers were everywhere – young, old and elderly men. It was impossible to tell what was happening.”