Peshawar, Feb 19 (IANS) In yet another incident of health workers being attacked in Pakistan, unknown gunmen killed a police officer while he was providing security to the polio vaccination team in Damadola, Mamund, Bajaur district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
As per Bajaur police officials, gunmen on motorbikes attacked the polio vaccination team which was engaged in a door-to-door vaccination campaign to give polio drops to children. The police official deployed to guard the polio team was shot dead by the attackers who later fled the scene. Police officials confirmed that the policeman died on the spot.
Bajaur district, a restive region bordering Afghanistan, has been one of the strongholds of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and a battlefield between the militant groups and the Pakistani security forces. The area has been known for being sensitive, critical and unwelcoming towards polio eradication campaigns with polio workers, security forces and their supporters being regularly targetted and killed by militants.
Residents of the area have refrained themselves from becoming part of the polio vaccination campaigns because they have been openly threatened by militant groups of serious consequences if they allow polio workers to work in their areas.
Earlier this month, a policeman assigned to ensure security of polio workers was shot dead in Jamrud, another district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Hundreds of polio workers have been targetted and killed by militants over the last few decades. As per statistics, over 200 polio workers have been killed in Pakistan since the 1990s and the number continues to rise as militants intensify their attacks.
Various militant groups assert that polio vaccination campaigns are part of a western conspiracy to sterilize children.
This has spread concern among locals who fear for their lives if they get their children vaccinated.
Pakistan has struggled to eradicate polio virus for decades now. Pakistan and Afghanistan remain as the only two countries in the world where polio cases still keep emerging.
During 2024, Pakistan reported at least 73 cases of polio virus. Of these, 27 cases were from Balochistan, 22 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 22 from Sindh province and one each from Punjab and the federal capital Islamabad.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had launched the first polio vaccination drive of the year on February 2 with an aim to vaccinate at least 44.2 million children under the age of five.
–IANS
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