QUETTA, Pakistan (AFP) - Thousands of women refused on Monday to bury victims of a bloody bombing and a strike shut down Pakistan's biggest city Karachi as protesters across the country demanded protection for Shi'ite Muslims.

Up to 4,000 women began their sit-in in Quetta on Sunday evening, a day after a bomb in the city killed 81 members of the minority community including nine women and two girls aged seven and nine.

The women blocked a road and refused to bury the dead until authorities take action against the extremists behind the attack, which wounded 178 people.