Two policemen killed guarding polio workers in Mohmand as gunmen open fire on vaccination duty
Suspected militants on a motorcycle shot dead two police officers protecting a polio vaccination team in Mohmand district on Tuesday, wounding a third officer, in the latest attack on Pakistan’s eradication campaign.
Two police officers assigned to protect polio workers have been killed in a drive-by shooting in northwestern Pakistan, officials said on Tuesday, in an attack that struck at the heart of a nationwide vaccination drive that began only a day earlier.
The officers were travelling to a nearby village in Mohmand district, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the border with Afghanistan, when suspected militants riding a motorcycle opened fire on them, according to police. A third officer was wounded in the shooting.
Police officer Ayaz Khan said the officers were on their way to guard vaccination teams carrying out door-to-door immunisation when they came under fire. The attackers fled the scene after the shooting, and no group had immediately claimed responsibility.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attack, describing it as intolerable and offering condolences to the families of the officers killed. He said the officers had been working for a healthier future for the country, a message echoed in official condemnations of attacks on health workers.
The shooting came on the second day of a nationwide campaign launched on Monday to vaccinate 24 million children against polio, part of Pakistan’s long effort to eradicate a disease that remains endemic in only two countries in the world: Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan, according to the World Health Organization.
Polio teams in Pakistan routinely work under police protection because vaccination drives have repeatedly been targeted. Militant groups, including the Pakistani Taliban, have attacked anti-polio campaigns and the police officers guarding health workers, spreading false claims that vaccination is part of a Western conspiracy to sterilise children — claims that health officials have consistently rejected.
The pattern of attacks has made each campaign a security operation as much as a health one. Vaccinators go door to door in districts where access can already be difficult, and the loss of their police escorts raises immediate questions about how safely teams can continue their rounds in the affected area.
Officials have not yet said whether the vaccination drive in Mohmand will be paused, rescheduled or reinforced after Tuesday’s attack. In past campaigns, authorities have responded to attacks by tightening security around teams rather than abandoning the drive, arguing that any interruption leaves children unprotected.
The attack also underlines the stakes of the current campaign. With millions of children due to be reached in a single week, health officials say even a short disruption in one district can leave gaps that the virus can exploit, particularly in border areas where movement between Pakistan and Afghanistan is frequent.
For now, the focus in Mohmand is on the wounded officer and the families of the two men killed, and on whether the teams they were protecting can safely resume their work. The campaign’s success, officials have long argued, depends not only on vaccines reaching every doorstep, but on the safety of the people carrying them there.
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