Pakistan presses Iran for answers after eight migrant workers are shot dead in Mehrestan

# Pakistan presses Iran for answers after eight migrant workers are shot dead in Mehrestan

*Event date: 2025-04-12*

Pakistan has called for a comprehensive investigation after eight Pakistani migrant workers were killed in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province, in an attack that deepens concern over violence along the countries’ shared border.

According to Al Jazeera, the workers were killed on Saturday in Mehrestan county, about 230 kilometers from the Pakistani border, after unidentified assailants attacked a workshop where they were employed as mechanics. Iranian media reported that the men were tied up and shot dead. The victims were said to come from several districts in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

The Baloch Nationalist Army, a smaller separatist group, claimed responsibility for the attack. That claim places the incident inside a wider pattern of violence in the Balochistan region, which spans parts of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan and remains a source of tension for all three states. Even so, the account of what happened is still politically sensitive, and the borderland security picture is shaped by rival narratives about who is responsible for attacks and which state is able or willing to stop them.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry condemned the killings and urged Iran to cooperate fully with the investigation and the repatriation of the bodies. The Pakistani envoy in Tehran said both governments were coordinating on the case. Iran also denounced the attack, with its ambassador to Pakistan describing terrorism as a shared regional threat.

The killings come after a period of heightened friction between Islamabad and Tehran. In January 2024, the two countries exchanged missile strikes after accusing each other of sheltering armed groups operating across the frontier. That episode underlined how local militant violence can quickly spill into interstate tensions.

Al Jazeera noted that a similar incident last year killed at least nine Pakistani laborers in Iran’s Saravan region. The outlet also pointed to the relative restraint Pakistan has shown toward criticism of Iran, compared with its sharper accusations against Afghanistan over militant sanctuaries.

The latest attack may also sharpen concern about armed groups operating on both sides of the border without clear deterrence. Security analysts quoted by Al Jazeera said the Baloch Nationalist Army is smaller than the Balochistan Liberation Army and has fewer resources, but still appears capable of staged attacks that draw regional attention.

For now, the immediate issue is the fate of the victims and whether authorities can identify the gunmen and explain how they reached a workplace so far from the border. More broadly, the killings show that violence in the borderlands remains intertwined with regional politics, local separatist grievances and the difficulty of policing remote terrain.