At least four children have been killed in a blast targeting a school bus in the Khuzdar district of Pakistan’s southwest Balochistan province, authorities said.

Yasir Iqbal Dashti, a government official in Khuzdar, confirmed that at least four children were killed and 38 people were wounded.

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“The school bus belonged to Army Public School as it was picking children in the morning when it was attacked by the suicide bomber,” he told Al Jazeera.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attack near Khuzdar’s Zero Point area and expressed “deep sorrow and grief” over the loss of four children.

“The enemy attacked innocent children with barbarity. The attack on the school bus is a heinous conspiracy of the enemy to create instability in the country,” he said in a statement.

Authorities said that the death toll could increase due to the severity of the explosion.

However, the school in Balochistan, which caters to the children of army personnel and civilians, is in Pakistan’s largest province by area but smallest population-wise.

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With about 15 million people living in the southwest of the country, it is home to key mining projects but has been disturbed by decades-old fighting.

In the northern city of Peshawar in 2014, more than 130 children were killed after a rebel group targeted a military school.

The attack was later claimed by the outlawed Taliban armed group, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).