ISLAMABAD: Two more Pakistanis have been killed after being hit by debris from ‘aerial interceptions’ in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iranian waters off Pakistan’s Balochistan province, authorities said on Sunday, bringing the total deaths of Pakistani nationals in similar incidents to three so far.
Debris from an aerial interception fell onto a vehicle in the Al Barsha area, resulting in the death of a Pakistani driver, the Dubai Media Office said on Sunday, without elaborating where the projectile appeared to have come from. A Pakistani national earlier died in Abu Dhabi on Feb. 28 after being struck by missile fragments, as per local media reports.
On Saturday evening, a fisherman, Tayyab Baloch, who hailed from Pakistan’s Gwadar coastal district, was killed after debris from an “aerial interception by Iranian forces” fell on his boat in the Iranian territorial waters close to Pakistan’s maritime jurisdiction, an official said.
“Tayyab’s helper has told the police that ‘debris from the sky fell on our boat and hit his head which caused Tayyab’s death instantly’,” the official, who is part of the Gwadar local administration and requested anonymity, told Arab News.
“The family didn’t allow the police to perform a post-mortem, calling him a martyr, and buried him in a local graveyard.”
The Gulf region has been embroiled in tensions since the United States and Israel began pounding Iran last week, prompting retaliatory strikes from Tehran against US bases in Gulf countries.
Saturday’s incident reportedly occurred some 30 kilometers from Jiwani town in Gwadar after Baloch, 18, took his speed boat into the Iranian waters to catch fish along with his helper — a practice that is not quite uncommon among Pakistani fisherfolk in Gwadar.
“We still suspect that he (Baloch) was hit by splinters or other metal thing which caused his death,” Asghar Baloch, the deceased’s uncle, told Arab News. “But we don’t have any information whether it was a drone or a missile.”
