PESHAWAR (AFP) – Militants shot dead two Pakistan policemen guarding a polio vaccination team yesterday, officials said, as the country confronts a recent resurgence of the disease.
Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan are the only countries where polio remains endemic and vaccination teams are frequently targeted by militants waging a campaign against security forces. On Monday, health workers launched a week-long vaccine drive aiming to immunise more than 45 million children over the age of five.
“Two militants attacked policemen guarding a polio vaccination team,” said a senior officer in the northwestern town of Orakzai Malik Sikandar.
“One policeman died at the scene while the second succumbed to injuries” en route to hospital, he told AFP, adding that officers chased down and killed the two attackers and a local accomplice.
Another police official, Naveed Ullah Khan, told AFP the two vaccination workers on the team “were inside the home during the attack and remained safe”.
