Pakistan: Dead after attack on vaccination campaign

Status: 11/30/2022 10:28 am

At least three people have been killed in an attack on security forces supporting a polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan. More than 20 were injured. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the assassination.

At least three people were killed in an attack on security forces working for a polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan. At least 23 others were injured in the attack in the western city of Quetta, Baluchistan province, including 20 police officers, police said.

The dead are said to be a police officer, a child and the assassin. The bomb hit a car in which police officers were sitting who were supposed to monitor a polio vaccination campaign. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement. The militant Islamists only declared the end of a ceasefire agreed with the government in May on Monday and called on their fighters to carry out attacks across the country.

Western conspiracy suspected

The TTP is an umbrella organization of militant Islamist groups that are said to have several thousand fighters. In the past, extremists in Pakistan have repeatedly carried out attacks on vaccination campaigns.

Militant Islamists see polio vaccination in part as a Western conspiracy to sterilize children. The vaccination teams are therefore routinely accompanied by police officers in remote areas in the west of the country.

Pakistan is one of the few countries in the world where there are still new transmissions of polio. After there was only one confirmed polio case in Pakistan in 2021, the numbers rose again this year. The authorities therefore only started a new vaccination campaign against polio in November.

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