The death toll from the suicide bombing at a mosque in Pakistan on Monday has risen sharply to 83, according to a hospital spokesperson.
The attack targeted police officers worshipping at the mosque in a heavily-fortified security forces’ compound in Peshawar during afternoon prayers.
Another 57 victims were wounded, some of them critically, by the blast which caused part of the mosque to collapse.
Search and rescue teams are still in the process of removing rubble from the site of the bombing after the mosque’s roof caved in, said Bilal Faizi, the chief rescue official.
On Tuesday morning, family members mourning the deaths of their loved ones began burying their remains at graveyards in Peshawar and elsewhere.
“The sheer scale of the human tragedy is unimaginable. This is no less than an attack on Pakistan,” tweeted Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, who visited the wounded in a Peshawar hospital and vowed “stern action” against those behind the bombing.
He expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, saying their pain “cannot be described in words”.
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