Workers killed in attack in Pakistan's Balochistan

Local official says attackers targeted labour camp near dam construction site in Turbat, leaving at least 20 dead.

Armed men have attacked a dam construction site in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, killing at least 20 workers and wounding three, according to a senior government official.

Pasand Khan Buledi, commissioner of Makran division, says a large group of armed men attacked a labour camp near the dam construction site in the Gobdan area of Turbat district early on Saturday.

The violence targeted the Gobdan area of the Turbat district in southwestern Balochistan province, a region where nationalist and separatist Baloch groups have fought against the Islamabad-based government for years.

Buledi said 16 of the dead were from Pakistan's Punjab province and four were from Sindh province. He said the eight guards, all from Balochistan, were unharmed in the attack. 

Buledi also said that the attackers overpowered the eight security guards, shot the sleeping labourers and fled.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Balochistan Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti told private satellite news channel Geo TV that Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps was searching in the nearby mountains for the attackers.

"We will chase them down and bring them to justice,'' Bugti said. "We need help in this war against terrorists. Alone, we cannot fight.''

Balochistan government spokesman Jan Mohammad Buledi said the government would offer the families of the deceased nearly $10,000 each.

Balochistan is the scene of a low-intensity insurgency by nationalist and separatist Baloch groups who want substantial share of revenue from gas and mineral resources and complete autonomy from Islamabad.

Saturday's violence was the deadliest recent attack to target civilians in the region. In September 2012, 10 laborers and five tribesmen in a labour camp were gunned down in the province's Khuzdar district.