Pakistan gunmen kill two police guarding polio vaccinators

A health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child at a neighbourhood of Karachi, Pakistan. File.
| Photo Credit: AP

Gunmen killed two Pakistani police officers guarding polio vaccinators in the turbulent southwestern province of Balochistan, officials said on Wednesday, the second attack since the launch of a nationwide inoculation drive this week.

In Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan — the only countries where polio remains endemic — militants have for decades targeted vaccination teams and their security escorts.

The officers were guarding health workers in the Teeri area of Mastung district when they were attacked by two motorcyclists, local administrator Manan Tareen told AFP.

“One of the policemen was killed on the spot, while the other succumbed to his injuries at the hospital,” Tareen told AFP.

“The team of health workers remained unharmed as they were inside a house conducting vaccinations,” he added.

Shahid Rind, a provincial government spokesperson, confirmed the toll to AFP.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes days after a policeman was killed in neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Over the past decade, hundreds of police officers and health workers have been killed by militants waging an offensive against the Pakistani state.

Denouncing Wednesday’s violence, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed that the vaccinations would continue “with full force”.

The latest polio eradication campaign aims to vaccinate over 45 million children, including over 2.6 million in Balochistan.

Polio, a highly infectious virus mainly affecting children under five, can result in lifelong paralysis but is easily prevented by the oral administration of a few drops of a vaccine.

Pakistan recorded a surge in polio cases last year, with 74 infections reported, compared to just six in 2023. So far this year, seven cases have been recorded.

In the past, firebrand clerics falsely claimed the vaccine contained pork or alcohol, forbidding Muslims from consuming it.

The US orchestration of a fake vaccination campaign in 2011 to track Osama bin Laden only sowed deeper mistrust.

In more recent years, militants’ attacks on police escorts have stymied vaccination efforts.

Last year, dozens of Pakistani officers who were accompanying medical teams went on strike after a string of deadly attacks.

The country has been rocked by increasing violence in its border regions since the Taliban returned to power nextdoor in 2021.

Islamabad accuses Kabul’s new rulers of failing to rout militants organising on Afghan soil, a charge the Taliban government routinely denies.

Balochistan — which sits alongside Afghanistan — was the area with the largest number of polio cases in 2024, despite being the most sparsely populated.

Pakistan’s poorest province is in the grip of separatist militants who regularly attack security forces, including a train siege last month that killed dozens of people.