KARACHI - Ethnic and politically linked violence in Pakistan's
financial capital Karachi has killed 800 people so far this year, the
country's independent human rights organisation said Friday.
"About
800 people have been the victims of violent shootings in the last seven
months," Zohra Yusuf, chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan (HRCP), told AFP.
Parts of the Arabian Sea port city
have become battlegrounds in recent weeks with authorities unable to
prevent violence, blamed on activists from political parties
representing competing ethnic groups, from spiralling.
The HRCP
previously said 490 people were killed in the first six months of the
year and on Friday that another 300 people died in July.
"The
figures compiled by our staff and the death toll for the last month
confirmed by the police shows the number of victims of violence was not
less than 300," Yusuf said.
The government has campaigned to end
the clashes and deployed hundreds of additional police and paramilitary
forces in the city, but the killings have continued with 58 people
reported dead in five days alone this week.
Much of the violence
has been blamed on tensions between supporters of the Muttahida Qaumi
Movement (MQM), rooted in the Urdu-speaking majority, and the Awami
National Party (ANP), which represents ethnic Pashtun migrants.
HCRP
says the violence in Karachi is the deadliest since 1995, when more
than 900 killings were reported in the first half of the year. AFP
