Bombers target polio vaccination centre in Pakistan

Separate militant groups, the Pakistani Taliban and Jundullah, a Taliban splinter group, both claimed responsibility for the attack, Reuters reported.

The bomb struck a police van outside a polio vaccination center in the provincial capital Quetta. Neighbours said the explosion caused cracks in nearby houses.

Syed Imtiaz Shah, the local police chief, says the bombing of the centre in Quetta on Wednesday killed 12 police, a soldier and a civilian.

“The blast was apparently carried out by a suicide bomber”, said Bugti, speaking to media after the blast.

When they were hit, among the police officers who survived the blast said his team was preparing to leave for assorted neighbourhoods around Quetta.

“Later, another militant group, Jundullah, also claimed the responsibility for the blast”.

“We are living in a war zone”, he said. He said most of the victims were policemen who laid down their lives to guard polio workers.

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.

The target of the campaign is to immunize 2.4 million children under the age of five.

In that year, Pakistan recorded its highest number of polio cases since 1999.

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria are the only countries where polio is considered endemic, but Pakistan reportedly accounts for more than 80 percent of all polio cases in the world.

At least 13 of the dead were security officials, Khan said.

He said the Pakistan Army had destroyed hideouts of terrorists and is now engaged to eliminate terrorists. Some Pakistanis are also suspicious about the vaccinations, fearing it will sterilize their children.

The Islamic State group has a presence in province, having fought with Taliban gunmen in recent months to take control of at least four border districts.

In December, an attacker threw a hand grenade at the offices of Din News in the eastern city of Lahore, leaving behind similar leaflets at the site of the attack.

People transfer an injured policeman to a hospital in southwest Pakistan’s Quetta, Jan. 13, 2016.