Suicide bomber kills at least 65 in Lahore as Christian celebrates Easter

Just a few days after the Brussels double suicide attacks that killed at least 34, Another suicide bomber struck today near a crowded children's playing area in Lahore Pakistan killing at least 65 people and hundreds injured, many of them children as Christians were celebrating Easter Sunday.

Officials said the bomber had detonated the explosives, packed with ball bearings, near a children's playing area in the popular Gulshan-i-Iqbal park.

Witnesses said they could hear children screaming as people carried the injured in their arms, while frantic relatives searched for loved ones in nightmarish scenes at the park near the centre of the city of eight million.

Doctors described frenzied scenes at hospitals, with staff treating casualties on floors and in corridors, as officials tweeted calls for blood donations.

"It was a suicide attack. The bomber managed to enter the park and blew himself up near the kids' playing area where kids were on the swings," Lahore's top administration official Muhammad Usman told AFP.

Javed Ali, a 35-year-old resident who lives opposite the park, said the force of the blast had shattered his home's windows.

"After ten minutes I went outside. There was human flesh on the walls of our house. People were crying, I could hear ambulances.

"It was overcrowded because of Easter, there were a lot of Christians there. It was so crowded I told my family not to go."

Yousaf Masih, a father who was searching for his family, told AFP: "My kids came here [to the park]. I was at home, I saw the news on TV, but my wife and children were here."

Witnesses said the wounded were first rushed to hospital in rickshaws and other vehicles before dozens of ambulances arrived on the scene.

Source: News24