Pakistani Taliban splinter group says attacks, which injured scores of people, were the work of two suicide bombers

Explosions outside two churches in the Pakistani city of Lahore have killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens more, provoking mob violence in which two suspected militants died.

A Pakistani Taliban splinter group claimed responsibility for the attacks during Sunday services, which occurred minutes apart in a majority Christian suburb of the eastern city.

Police said it seemed they targeted two churches, one Catholic and one Protestant, that are very close to each other and in which there were at least 500 people at the time.

While official figures put the death toll at 14, Dr Mohammad Saeed Sohbin, medical superintendent of the Lahore general hospital, said 15 people had been killed. He added that 64 were injured, with at least 10 patients in a critical condition. “Almost all of those impacted by the blast came here,” he said.

“Initially there was a lot of panic,” Sohbin told the Guardian. “But we’ve handed over the dead and it is a bit calmer now.” Most of those injured were men, but women and children were also among the wounded.

One official has put the number of wounded at 78 while one rescuer said: “The rescue operation is still underway and the death toll may increase.”

Local television channels broadcast moving scenes of women collapsing with grief as the bodies of the victims were brought into their homes.

Islamist militants in Pakistan have frequently attacked Christians and other religious minorities over the last decade.



Many Christians, who make up fewer than 2% of Pakistan’s population of more than 180 million, accuse the government of doing little to protect them, saying politicians are quick to offer condolences after an attack but slow to improve security.



Pope Francis has condemned the attacks, telling crowds in St Peter’s Square that he felt great pain at the news. “These are Christian churches. Christians are persecuted, our brothers spill their blood simply because they are Christians,” he said.

The Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has claimed responsibility for the blasts, which led to enraged residents protesting and lynching two suspects, police said. A journalist, Riaz Ahmed, said he saw two burned bodies at a crossroads.

“According to the crowd, these two suspects were trying to attack these churches. They first beat them up and then tried to burn them to death; in fact, they did burn them,” Nabila Ghazanfar, a spokeswoman for the Punjab police, said.



Protesters in Lahore also beat up police officers and attacked a bus station. Schools and colleges affiliated with the Catholic board of education will be closed on Monday as a sign of mourning.

Protests were reported in other parts of the country, including in Essa Nagri, a Christian neighbourhood in Karachi. Michael Javed, a Christian activist and former provincial legislator based in the area, said people were protesting because of resentment at the government.

“The supreme court has ordered that the places of worship of religious minorities should be provided security,” Javed said. “If the government can’t even protect the house of God, how can it protect schools?”

The head of the Punjab’s police has issued orders for additional security at churches and mosques in the province. Pakistan’s police are notoriously poorly trained and underfunded and the court systemhas a backlog of more than a million cases.

Lahore is the capital of Punjab, Pakistan’s wealthiest and most populous province and the political heartland of the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. The city is considered peaceful compared with many other areas of Pakistan, but violence has been increasing after the government’s failed attempts to hold peace talks with the Taliban last year.

After the talks failed, the military launched an offensive in the remote north-western region of North Waziristan, along the Afghan border, to push the Taliban from the last major region it controlled. The military now holds the major urban centres there, but residents say many militants fled before the offensive began and others remain in rural areas.