Sultanate condemns blast in Pakistan
MUSCAT: The Sultanate on Monday strongly condemned the terrorist bombing in Quetta city in the friendly Islamic Republic of Pakistan which killed dozens and injured many innocent civilians.
According to the statement released by the Foreign Ministry, the Sultanate affirmed its solidarity Statistics on road safety point to an emerging trend in the last few years: the number of serious accidents reported in the Sultanate has come down and so are chances of people surviving them. Oman’s most risky road continues to be the Salalah route, which has already seen 16 deaths over the past month, not to forget accidents involving a few public transport buses since April this year. According to the National Centre for Statistics and I n f o r mat i o n (NCSI), the number of road accidents dropped by 18.1 per cent from 2,430 in June-end 2016 to 1,989 for the same period this year. At the same time, there has been a 6.1per cent dip in the number of deaths, from 336 in 2016 to 314 in 2017 during the same period.
The number of people injured dropped only 2.7 per cent, from 1,633 in 2016 to 1,589 in 2017.
Fifty-two per cent of the accidents occur during night.
The Ministry of Transport and Communications on Sunday clarified that most accidents on the AdamThamrait road were due to the speed factor. “I will never travel to Salalah by road from Muscat with families as the stretch is too long and we cannot avoid night travel,” said Ibrahim al Hinai, who used to take a bus from Rusayl until the arrival of the budget airline. with Pakistan, as well as with all international efforts confronting the menace of violence and terrorism.
The statement expressed sincere sympathy to families of the victims, the friendly Islamic Republic of Pakistan; its government and people, praying to the Almighty for the speedy recovery to the injured.
Provincial home minister Sarfraz Bugti said earlier that the blast hit as a paramilitary patrol passed by on the road, adding the patrol may have been the target.
Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa said terrorists were trying to disrupt Monday’s celebrations of 70 years of independence.