The police reported that gunmen forcibly entered a residence near the southwestern Pakistani city of Gwadar and targeted workers in what appeared to be an ethnically motivated attack. The victims were originally from Pakistan's Punjab province.

Unidentified gunmen opened fire and killed a minimum of seven workers in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan, according to police reports on Thursday.

Mohsin Ali, a police official, stated that the assailants forcefully entered a residence situated approximately 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of the port city of Gwadar, where the workers were sleeping, and proceeded to shoot them.

Gwadar, a coastal town, is the focal point for numerous projects backed by Beijing within the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor investment, which forms part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

According to Ali, the victims hailed from the central Pakistani province of Punjab and were operating a barber shop.

Despite this, the police expressed their belief that the assault was not connected to their profession. Earlier assaults, attributed to the Pakistani Taliban in the northern regions near the Afghan border, were thought to be driven by a militant prohibition on Western-style beard trimming and haircuts.

Although no faction has taken credit for the murders, they align with a recurring trend of ethnically-driven assaults in the volatile Balochistan province.

Just last month, the self-styled Balochistan Liberation Army acknowledged responsibility for the killing of multiple workers abducted from a bus on a highway.

Balochistan, renowned for its mineral wealth, has been plagued by a longstanding insurgency led by ethnic Baloch insurgents battling against the government.

These separatists, who oppose Chinese investments, have consistently lamented the unequal distribution of profits within the province.

The Baloch people, an ethnic community spanning both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border and extending into southern Afghanistan, inhabit an area roughly equivalent to the size of France, with the Pakistani province of Balochistan comprising the largest portion.

The Balochs level accusations of systematic discrimination and exploitation against both governments, alleging the plundering of their region. Various factions of militant insurgents have orchestrated attacks on both sides of the border in response.