Attack on workers at Pakistan port Gwadar for Chinese project; 26 hurt

QUETTA: Unidentified men threw a grenade into a laborers’ hostel in Gwadar wounding 26 of them, police said on Friday, in an attack likely to raise concern about security for the Pakistani section of China’s “Belt and Road” initiative.

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, one of three on Thursday in the gas-rich southwestern province of Baluchistan, a key section of the plan for energy and transport links connecting western China with the Middle East and Europe.

“They laborers were having dinner at the hostel when motorcyclists attacked them with a grenade,” police official Imam Bakhsh told Reuters.

Security officials have said that militants trying to disrupt construction of the Chinese economic corridor through Pakistan have killed more than 50 Pakistani workers since 2014.

Pakistan has assured China that it can provide security for the $57 billion worth of projects that it plans.