PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) – Gunmen riding a motorcycle ammunition and killed a policeman in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday while abducting a team of polio workers.
The attack in Karak district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa district came on the second day of a nationwide anti-polio vaccination campaign launched by Pakistani authorities in an effort to eradicate the plague before the end of the year.
Polio workers fled the team in Karak unharmed, according to local police officer Irfan Khan. An investigation was underway for the attackers who escaped the scene, he said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Pakistan regularly launches polio drivers. They hoped to eradicate polio back in 2018, when only 12 cases were reported. But in the years since there has been an uptick in new matters. The latest five-day anti-polio campaign began on Monday, with the aim of vaccinating 40 million children across Pakistan.
Soldiers often target polio and police teams assigned to their defense. The Pakistani Taliban says the protests are a Western conspiracy to execute children.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries left in the world where polio is endemic, after Nigeria last year declared it free from the wild polio virus.