PAKISTANI government officials continued talks with Shi'ite leaders yesterday as protesters prepared for another night in the cold rain alongside the bodies of 96 people killed in one of the worst sectarian attacks in the country's history.

Leaders of Shi'ite Hazaras, the ethnic group which was the target of Friday's twin bombings in the provincial capital Quetta, have vowed not to bury their dead until authorities promise to protect them better. The number keeping vigil at the site of the bombings – claimed by a Sunni militant group – more than doubled to 5000 yesterday.