A Pakistani police officer was killed when gunmen opened fire on a delegation of health workers carrying out a polio vaccination drive in the volatile Balochistan Province.
Police said the officer, who was part of the security detail escorting the health workers on the second day of a door-to-door campaign, died in the town of Nushki on May 27, local media reported.
No health workers were harmed and no one has claimed responsibility for the attack. Polio teams have frequently been targeted by insurgent groups. Both the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic State militias are active in the region.
The Dawn newspaper quoted President Asif Ali Zardari as saying he condemned the attack and saluted polio vaccine officials who “[inspire] us all to save our children from this crippling disease.”
Pakistan is one of two countries in the world -- Afghanistan is the other -- where the deadly polio virus has not been eradicated. Balochistan Province borders Afghanistan and Iran in southwestern Pakistan.
The World Health Organization's Pakistan office is overseeing the drive, which runs until June 1 and will target 45 million children. The organization said 400,000 health workers will go door-to-door to administer the vaccines.
The Pakistan Polio Control Agency said that during the campaign, 23.3 million children will be vaccinated in Punjab, 10.6 million in Sindh, 7.3 million in Khyber Balochistan, 2.66 million in Balochistan, 740,000 in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, 280,000 in Gilgit-Baltistan, and 460,000 in Islamabad.
The oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but also least populated province. It is also a hub for the country's ethnic Baluch minority who have long accused the central authorities of discrimination and exploitation.
A roadside bomb targeting a van that was transporting the police guarding polio vaccination teams killed four children and a police officer in the province in November.
For more than a decade, Pakistan's hard-line extremist group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has sustained a violent campaign against polio vaccinators and security forces guarding polio team workers in the country.
Militants often spread false claims that polio vaccines are part of a Western agenda to sterilize Muslim children. Also, militants target polio teams suspected of being government spies.
In addition, Baluch separatist groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), designated as a global terrorist organization by the United States, are engaged in fighting against the Pakistani government.
