UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official profile] released a statement [statement] on Sunday condemning the suicide bombers who targeted Pakistani Christians celebrating the Easter holiday in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park. The Secretary-General urged the Pakistani government to work towards ensuring safety for all, especially those who are members of religious minorities. More than 60 people were killed and over 100 were injured, a large number of whom were women and children. The Pakistani Taliban’s Jamaat-ur-Ahrar group, which previously has declared loyalty to the Islamic State (IS), claimed responsibility [Reuters report] for the attack.

The threat to Christians in the Middle East has heightened in past years as radical extremists have increasingly targeted attacks on this religious group. In February, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned [JURIST report] the beheading of Coptic Christians in Libya by IS, characterizing the acts as “vile crime[s] targeting people on the basis of their religion.” The Egyptian Christians were abducted in two separate incidents, and a released video showed members of IS beheading the captives on a beach in Libya. Earlier that month, Egypt’s state-run National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) [official website] publicly condemned recent violent attacks against the nation’s Coptic Christians. Islamist extremists are believed to be behind attacks [CNN report] such as the burning of churches and property owned by Christians, along with the displacement of Christian citizens. Coptic Christians comprise roughly 10 percent of the country’s 85 million people and more than 275 people were killed and 2,000 injured in the course of the attacks. These citizens have become a scapegoat for the ousting of Egyptian ex-president Mohamed Morsi [BBC profile], and recent attacks are widely seen as retaliation from Morsi supporters, the Muslim Brotherhood [BBC profile]. In September 2013, Ki-moon released a similar statement condemning [statement] a terrorist attack [CNN report] on a Christian church in Peshawar, Pakistan, which killed more than 80 people and wounded more than 100.