Violent attack on Pakistan's vaccination campaign leaves one worker and one policeman dead

On September 11, 2024, a distressing violent incident occurred in Har, Pakistan. Police revealed that in northwestern Pakistan, policemen providing escort for workers conducting door-to-door polio vaccination campaigns were attacked by gunmen on motorcycles. This attack resulted in the deaths of one policeman and one polio prevention and control worker.

According to local police chief Abdul Aziz, no organization immediately claimed responsibility for this attack in Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. This area was once a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban. Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi issued a statement strongly condemning the attack.

Against the backdrop of frequent armed attacks, Pakistan launched a polio vaccination campaign nationwide on Monday. Polio is a potentially fatal and paralyzing disease that mainly affects children under five years old and is usually spread through contaminated water. On the same day, in South Waziristan in the southwestern part of the province, a roadside bomb attacked a vehicle carrying policemen responsible for protecting health workers conducting polio immunizations, resulting in injuries to six policemen and three civilians. The radical group "Islamic State" later claimed responsibility for Monday's attack.

Pakistan's polio vaccination campaigns are often violently disrupted. Militants target vaccination teams and the policemen protecting them, wrongly claiming that these activities are a Western conspiracy aimed at sterilizing children. Since January this year, Pakistan has reported 17 new cases of polio, presenting a severe challenge to the country's decades-long efforts to eradicate polio. Currently, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where the spread of polio has never been stopped.