Aid workers among 18 dead in Pakistan hotel bomb

Rescuers are today searching the rubble of a Pakistan hotel for survivors of a suicide bomb attack that killed 18 people including a British United Nations worker. Gunmen shot their way into a luxury hotel used by aid workers in two trucks before detonating a 500kg bomb - reducing it to a mass of concrete and twisted metal. At least 18 people were killed last night and 70 injured when suspected Islamic militants stormed into the luxury Pearl Continental Hotel in the north western city of Peshawar.This morning rescue workers were pulling out bodies and looking for people trapped.

Dozens of international aid workers were at the five-star Pearl Continental when the suicide bombers struck late yesterday. "The number of casualties could rise as we fear that some people are still trapped under the debris," police spokesman Abdul Ghafoor Afridi told Agence France Presse news agency. It was the latest in a series of attacks on Pakistani cities that officials say are revenge for a military offensive against the Taliban in the north western region, Swat.The militants drove through the main gate of the Pearl Continental Hotel in a pick-up truck, spraying security guards with bullets before ramming their vehicle into the building and detonating it. “It was a suicide attack,” Sefwat Ghayur, the city police chief, said.

Police said that the vehicle had been able to bypass security because it appeared to be delivering hotel supplies. Another police official, said that there were at least two attackers, who were wearing security guard uniforms. Witnesses described a large explosion followed by a fire that gutted the hotel, leaving a deep crater outside the four-storey building. TV footage showed ambulances and police cars outside the hotel, which is popular with politicians, officials and business people, as well as foreign aid workers, journalists and diplomats.

Among those killed was UN refugee agency worker Aleksandar Vorkapic, 44, who was deployed to Pakistan to help in relief efforts for about 2 million people forced from their homes by the Swat conflict, the world body said in a statement. A worker with the UN Children’s Fund, Unicef, identified as Perseveranda from the Philippines, was also killed, the agency said. Four UN workers were injured. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called it a “heinous terrorist attack which no cause can justify.” Yesterday’s bombing was the seventh deadly attack in Peshawar, in a month and one of more than a dozen that the Taliban have carried out since the Pakistani Army launched an offensive in Swat in April.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children