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PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) – Gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed a policeman in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday as he escorted a team of polio workers.
The attack in Karak district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, came on the second day of a nationwide polio vaccination campaign that Pakistani authorities launched with the aim of eradicating the crippling disease by end of the year.
Karak’s team polio officers escaped unharmed, local police officer Irfan Khan said. A search for the attackers who fled the scene was underway, he added. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Pakistan regularly launches polio control campaigns. He had hoped to eliminate polio in 2018, when only 12 cases were reported. But in the years that followed, there was an increase in the number of new cases. The latest five-day polio campaign began on Monday, with the goal of immunizing 40 million children across Pakistan.
Activists often target polio teams and the police charged with protecting them. The Pakistani Taliban claim the campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio is endemic, after Nigeria was declared free from the wild polio virus last year.
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