PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Suspected militants opened fire on a policeman guarding a group of polio workers in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing the officer and a bystander before fleeing, police said.
No polio workers were injured in the attack, which took place in Bajaur, a district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, local police chief Samad Khan said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups the government blames. similar attacks in the region and in other parts of the country.
The shooting came a day after Pakistan began a week-long campaign nationwide vaccination campaign aims to immunize 45 million children. According to the World Health Organization, Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the only two countries where polio has not been eradicated.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a statement condemned the attack and vowed to take strong action against those responsible.
Pakistan has reported 30 polio cases since January, compared with 74 in the same period last year, the government's Polio Eradication Initiative said.
Pakistan regularly launches anti-polio campaigns despite attacks on workers and police assigned to vaccination drives. Militants falsely claim that vaccination campaigns are a Western plot to sterilize children.
Since the 1990s, more than 200 polio workers and the police officers assigned to protect them have been killed in Pakistan, according to health and security officials.
