15 dead in attack on Pakistan polio center

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the suicide attack by Taliban outside a polio vaccination centre in Pakistan’s Quetta city that killed 15 people and appealed its government to bring perpetrators of the attack to justice.

“There are 15 dead, including 12 police, one paramilitary, and two civilians”, a local police official said. Earlier, Attaullah Khogyani, Spokesman for the provincial Governor, said a suicide bomber had tried to join a queue of people seeking visas to Pakistan and blew himself up after being prevented from entering the building.

The bomb exploded outside the police center shortly before vaccination teams were scheduled to leave for local neighborhoods as part of a three-day immunization campaign.

“The security officials were in a vehicle outside the centre when the bomber detonated his explosive vest”, Balochistan’s Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti told journalists.

Security forces and rescue workers immediately rushed to the site, and police have cordoned off the area.

He said: “We are living in a conflict zone and hostile agencies are targeting us”. “We were gathered outside the Health Care Centre at 8.55am when suddenly a piercing explosion rang out”, said Muhammad Younas, a policeman who survived the blast with some injuries. According to the New York Times, 13 of the victims were police officers, who were there to guard polio workers. “However, the vaccination campaign will continue across the province at all costs”, he said in a statement.

But officials say that 2015 also saw a significant decline in polio cases, largely because vaccination teams could reach areas that were previously off limits because of militancy.

The militant group Jundullah, which has links to the Pakistani Taliban and has pledged allegiance to the so-called Islamic State, has claimed responsibility.

Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic, the World Health Organization says. The Afghan Taliban has actually been more willing to allow anti-polio campaigns than its Pakistani counterparts, but armed conflict has still made eradication efforts hard.