High walls around the neighborhoods of Pakistan's embattled Hazara community in the southwestern city of Quetta are designed to protect them from extremist militants, but also serve as a constant reminder of the threat they face.

Soldiers and security checkpoints greet visitors to Hazara Town, one of two large guarded neighborhoods in the capital of Baluchistan, a province where religious and sectarian groups often target the mostly Shiite Hazaras with bombs and guns.

Despite improved security in recent years, partly because most Hazaras have moved into the guarded enclaves, hard-line Sunni militants keep up attacks, such as a blast in April that killed 24 people, among them eight Hazaras.