Published on 12 March 2021
The spread of Covid-19 in Pakistan was largely blamed on Shia pilgrims returning from Iran, including Hazara Shias, after Iran announced its first Covid-19 deaths in February 2020. Last year, the IDS-led CREID programme published perspectives from the frontline on experiences of the Hazara community and also supported six local researchers to delve a little deeper into the impact of this on the attitudes of non-Shias of Quetta, Pakistan. Their findings are shared below and in a forthcoming blog mini-series.
Vegetable market in Hazara Town, Quetta, Pakistan. Credit: Asef Ali Mohammad
A year ago, after Iran was one of the first countries to announce suspected Covid-19 deaths in its Shia Islam pilgrimage city of Qom, Pakistan temporarily closed its border with Iran. Thousands of Pakistanis returning from Iran, including pilgrims and traders, were at first stranded in Iran then quarantined at Taftan in Balochistan, southwestern Pakistan, a remote, largely desert and mountainous province which is mineral-rich but mainly poor and under-developed.