17 June, 2013 - Gunmen killed two anti-polio workers on Sunday in northwest Pakistan,
police said, the latest violence directed at efforts to eradicate the disease from
the country. The two attackers shot the two Pakistani health workers while they were
on a vaccination drive in rural Kandar village, said Swabi District Police Chief Mohammad
Saeed. The gunmen arrived on foot and then disappeared, he said. No one claimed responsibility
for the Sunday attack. Some Pakistani militant groups oppose the vaccinations and
accuse the workers of spying for the U.S. They point out the case of a Pakistani doctor
used by the CIA to collect blood samples of the family of Osama bin Laden in order
to track him down and kill him in Pakistan in 2011. Islamic militants also try to
block inoculation campaigns by portraying them as a conspiracy to sterilize people
and reduce the world's Muslim population. Over the past year, nearly 20 health workers
from the anti-polio campaign have been killed. Pakistan is one of the only three countries,
along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, still affected by the polio virus. As many as
58 cases were reported in Pakistan in 2012, down from 198 in 2011. The World Health
Organization said in late March that some 240,000 children have missed U.N.-backed
vaccinations against polio because of security concerns in Pakistan's tribal regions
bordering Afghanistan. It said the health workers have not been able to immunize children
in the North and South Waziristan regions _ Taliban strongholds _ since July 2012.
Sunday’s shootings came a day after a Pakistani al-Qaida-linked militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi,
killed 24 people in the southwestern city of Quetta. In the first of Saturday's attacks
in Quetta, a blast ripped through a bus carrying female students, killing 14. When
the victims were taken to the nearby hospital, a suicide bomber struck there. Other
attackers captured parts of the complex, triggering a siege by security forces in
which four paramilitaries also died. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for
the attacks. Six attackers also died in the siege. (Source: AP)