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NPR: Suicide Bombing At Hospital In Pakistan Kills More Than 60 People

Pakistani journalists react over the body of a news cameraman after an explosion at a government hospital in Quetta on Monday. Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Images

Updated at 8 a.m. ET

A suicide bomber in the city of Quetta, in western Pakistan, has killed at least 63 people and injured more than 100 others.

The attack struck a hospital, NPR's Abdul Sattar reports — the explosion struck in the emergency ward of Civil Hospital.

A Pakistani mourner sits alongside bodies of blast victims following a bombing near a polio vaccination center at a hospital in Quetta.

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"Most of the victims are lawyers, journalists and common citizens," Abdul says.

Quetta is the capital of the province of Baluchistan, which is home to a number of militant groups, Abdul says. The Quetta Shura, a group of leaders of the Afghan Taliban, is believed to be based in the city.

Pakistani Christian women mourn the deaths of their family members during a funeral service at a local church in Lahore, Pakistan, on Monday.

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"A few months ago Taliban's chief Mullah Akhter Mansour was also killed in this province," he reports. "Baluchistan has witnessed a number of terrorist attacks in the last 12 years, most of which targeted the Shiite community of the province."

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Earlier on Monday, the body of a prominent Quetta lawyer had been brought to the government-run hospital. The lawyer, Bilal Kasi, had been shot on his way to court. A number of his colleagues had arrived at the hospital to express their condolences and grief.

One lawyer told The Associated Press that when he arrived to join the mourners, he saw dozens of lawyers killed or wounded in the suicide attack.

A witness told the wire service that there were "bodies everywhere" after the explosion. Waliur Rehman said the bomb was so powerful that he and his sick father — making their way to the emergency ward, but still about 200 yards away — were knocked down by the blast.

No group has claimed responsibility for Monday's attack, the AP reports.