Four people were sitting in a truck near Karachi University’s Confucius Institute when an explosion pierced the vehicle Tuesday night, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rana Sana Ullah told CNN.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a group of separatist fighters from Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack in a statement shared with CNN.
A fourth Chinese teacher was injured in the explosion, China’s foreign ministry said.
“The blood of the Chinese people should not be shed in vain, and those behind this incident will certainly pay the price,” the ministry said in a statement.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the incident.
China is Pakistan’s closest partner and largest source of economic and military support. But in recent years, terrorist attacks targeting Chinese nationals and their interests in Pakistan have made Beijing wary.
Islamabad blamed that attack on the Pakistani Taliban, which operates out of Afghanistan. However, the BLA has also had a series of attacks against Chinese nationals and their interests, opposing what it sees as Islamabad’s monopoly over Balochistan’s mineral resources.
Bordering Afghanistan and Iran, Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but least populous province. It is the foundation for the country’s massive multi-billion dollar infrastructure deal with Beijing, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
In 2018, the BLA claimed another attack in which gunmen attempted to storm the Chinese consulate in Karachi, killing four people. It said it would not tolerate any expansionist efforts by the Chinese military.
