Gunmen kill two Shiites in Pakistan's Quetta

QUETTA, Pakistan - Gunmen in southwest Pakistan shot dead two Shiite Muslims who had emigrated from neighbouring Afghanistan almost a decade ago to escape violence there, police said Sunday.

Two men opened fire Saturday night on the family, from Afghanistan's Hazara community, who were at a bus station in Quetta preparing to travel to the southern city of Karachi.

"A man of about 65 years of age and his 18-year-old grandson were killed in the firing at the bus terminal at Sariyab road," Imran Qureshi, a senior police official, told AFP.

Two other men and two women family members managed to run away and take shelter. The gunmen escaped on a motorbike.

Qureshi said the family had migrated from Afghanistan almost a decade ago to escape war in their homeland.

A man describing himself as a member of the banned Sunni Muslim extremist group Jaish-ul-Islam called media outlets to claim responsibility for the attack.

Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, which is torn both by a separatist insurgency and violence directed against Shiites.

They make up around 20 per cent of Pakistan's population, which is largely Sunni Muslim.

According to a report by a Human Rights Watch, more than 400 Shiites were killed in targeted attacks across the country in 2013.