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At Pakistan mortuary, unclaimed bodies and frantic relatives

A Pakistani family member comforts Sabir, left, who lost his 16-year son Bilal in blast at a shrine which killed dozens of people, outside a morgue in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2016. Bilal's father stepped outside, his brown salwar kameez soaked with sweat, tears rolling down his cheeks. Bilal had been his only son. He had brought the body to the mortuary to be washed in keeping with Islamic traditions. He would then be wrapped in a white shroud for burial. (AP Photo/B.K. Bangash)
A Pakistani family member comforts Sabir, left, who lost his 16-year son Bilal in blast at a shrine which killed dozens of people, outside a morgue in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2016. Bilal's father stepped outside, his brown salwar kameez soaked with sweat, tears rolling down his cheeks. Bilal had been his only son. He had brought the body to the mortuary to be washed in keeping with Islamic traditions. He would then be wrapped in a white shroud for burial. (AP Photo/B.K. Bangash) A Pakistani family member comforts Sabir, left, who lost his 16-year son Bilal in blast at a shrine which killed dozens of people, outside a morgue in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2016. Bilal's father stepped outside, his brown salwar kameez soaked with sweat, tears rolling down his cheeks. Bilal had been his only son. He had brought the body to the mortuary to be washed in keeping with Islamic traditions. He would then be wrapped in a white shroud for burial. (AP Photo/B.K. Bangash)

By Associated Press 4 min read

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) – In Karachi’s largest mortuary, the body of an infant not more than nine months old sits waiting to be claimed.

He was the youngest victim of a suicide attack at a shrine in southwest Pakistan Saturday that killed 52 people. Mortuary worker Latafatullah Hassan said he fears the infant’s parents were also among the dead.

The mortuary is cold. The child’s body is uncovered. He looks as if he could be sleeping, with no visible wounds from the suicide bombing of a crowded Sufi shrine in the midst of a crowded religious celebration.

The Islamic State group’s local affiliate, calling itself the Khorasan Province, claimed responsibility – saying that a suicide bomber had attacked “Shiites” at the Shah Noorani shrine in the remote Khuzdar district of Baluchistan province. The bomber struck amid diverse crowds full of women and children during the traditional Sufi dhammal dance. The shrine is frequented by both Pakistan’s majority Sunni and minority Shiite Muslims.

Gulam Rasool arrived frantically at the mortuary, waving the identity card of his cousin – an elderly looking man with a long white beard. “I’ve been everywhere, to every hospital but I can’t find him. They told me to come here.”