Gunmen on a motorcycle have shot dead a police officer protecting polio workers during a UN-backed vaccination campaign in Pakistan.
The attack took place as dozens of polio workers – including several women – were going door-to-door to vaccinate children in Gullu Dheri village of Swabi district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“The polio workers were terrified and immediately went back to their homes after the attack,” a police spokesman said. “The anti-polio drive in that village has been suspended.”
Elsewhere in the north-west, a man wounded a polio worker with an axe. He was marking houses in Machi village to indicate where vaccines had been administered and the attacker became angry after his door was marked.
The attacks occurred on the second day of a three-day campaign against polio that was launched by the provincial government. No one claimed responsibility for the shooting in Gullu Dheri, but suspicion fell on militants.
Some Islamists oppose the vaccination campaign, accuse health workers of acting as spies for the US and claim the polio vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile.
Suspicion of vaccination
campaigns heightened considerably after a Pakistani doctor helped in the US hunt for Osama bin Laden. http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/international/police-bodyguard-for-un-workers-in-anti-polio-drive-shot-dead-in-pakistan-1-5364002
