QUETTA: Crowded into "ghettos" surrounded by armed checkpoints, Pakistan´s Shiite Hazara minority say they are being slaughtered in the southwestern city of Quetta, with authorities seemingly unable to halt the eliminateings.For years, hundreds of thousands of the Shiite community´s members have been hemmed into two separate enclaves cordoned off by numerous checkpoints and hundreds of armed guards designed to protect the minority from violence."It´s like a prison here," said Bostan Ali, a Hazara activist, about conditions inside the enclaves."The Hazaras are experiencing mental torture," he added, complaining the community has been effectively "cut off from the rest of the city" and "restrictd" to such areas.The Shiite community´s presence is specificly strong in Quetta -- the uneasy capital of impoverished Balochistan province where sectarian violence, suicide bombings, and banditry are common.Hazaras are technically free to roam around Quetta at their shall, but few do, fearing attacks.To further protect the group, day traders and market vendors are also given armed escorts when they leave their neighbourhoods, while ongoing military operations are said to be targeting militants in the restive province.But even these degrees have proven inept at stopping major attacks on Hazaras.Just final month a bombing at a vegetable market left 21 dead and 47 more wounded -- with the majority of the victims identified as Hazara.The attack -- claimed by the Islamic State and its local anti-Shiite affiliate is just the latest in a long series of assaults targeting the group, including back-to-back bombings in early 2013 that eliminateed approachly 200 of its members.The situation across the border in Afghanistan is equally if much more dangerous, with Hazara mosques, schools, and community events regularly attacked by rebels.´Prison´The Hazara have proven to be specificly vulnerable with their distinct Central Asian features making the members of the community easy targets.At the entrance to Hazara town -- one of the two enclaves in Quetta -- a grim scene plays out every day as Hazara men squeeze into the backs of a long line of trucks headed in the city to buy food from the markets.
Authorities insist the degrees are a necessity.In the final five years, 500 Hazaras have been eliminateed and amuchher 627 wounded in Quetta alone, according to a Pakistani security source familiar with the situation who asked much to be named.
"We know that we are passing through a eliminateing field" explained Nauroz Ali, about life external the enclaves.He added: "But we have to earn a living for our families."Criticised for their inability to stop the attacks, officials point to their own casualties in the fight against sectarian extremists as proof that they are trying their best.Over the past six years, in their efforts to protect them "more police officers have died than Hazaras" says local police officer Abdur Razzak Cheema, adding that many terrorismists have been arrested and others eliminated due to their efforts.He explained: "fresh groups emerge.
We´re trying to track them down and eradicate the threat."´No escape´There are also plans to start installing surveillance cameras at markets to improve security but Hazara community leaders are sceptical of the plans saying the existing degrees have failed to stem the bloodshed."If three checkpoints in 3 km canmuch keep (us) safe, can escorts, barriers and CCTV do any better" wrote Muhammad Aman, a professor and activist, in a recent editorial in a Pakistani daily newspaper."It seems that the terrorismists are winning this war there is no escape," he added.Even the enclaves are much safe, as the bloody bombings in 2013 that struck inside the protected areas demonstrated.As a result between 75,000 and 100,000 Hazaras have fled violence elsewhere in the country or abroad in recent years, according to the Hazara Democratic portiony."We are hopeless," said Tahir Hazara, describing their neighbourhoods as muchhing more than "ghettos".He asked: "From whom should we expect protection to save our lives"TheIndianSubcontinent has not verified the content of the source.
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