4 youths killed in a military drone strike during a picnic in Pakistan

Four young men were killed and two others injured in a reported Pakistani military drone strike in the Lotham area of Balicha, Tump, in Balochistan’s Kech district on Thursday afternoon.

According to family and local sources, six residents of Balicha had gone to the nearby mountains for a picnic. Four were preparing food while the other two had gone hunting when the strike occurred. The dead were identified as Yasir, son of Muhammad Karim; Zubair, son of Nawab; Sameer, son of Abdul Khaliq; and Deedag, son of Muhammad Umar. Three of the four were cousins from the same family.

Sources said Pakistani military personnel removed the bodies from the site and took the two injured men into custody. The bodies were later returned to the families. Funeral prayers were held in Balicha Talokan on Saturday morning and were attended by a large number of local residents as well as political and social figures. Family members said the two injured men remained in the custody of Pakistani forces.

Pakistani authorities described those killed as suspected militants and claimed that weapons and ammunition had been recovered from them. Families and local residents rejected this account, saying the four were unarmed civilians who had gone to the mountains for a picnic, and called for an investigation.

The incident is the latest in a series of disputed drone and aerial attacks in Balochistan in which local accounts of civilian casualties have differed from those issued by the Pakistani military.