14 killed in attack on Pakistani vaccination center

Crime scene investigators collect evidence after a bomb blast close to a polio eradication center in Quetta, Pakistan, on Wednesday.

At least 15 people, including 12 police officers, are said to have died as a suspected suicide bomber struck outside a polio vaccination center in Pakistan.

The bomb ripped through a police van that had just arrived at the centre to provide an escort for vaccination workers engaged in a drive to immunise all children under five years old in Balochistan. The official added that at least 10 people had been wounded in the blast, nine of whom were police and one a civilian.

The United Nations and global relief groups have long backed Pakistan’s campaign against polio, a crippling childhood disease that still circulates only here and in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Ahmed Marwat, who identified himself as a commander and spokesman for Jundullah, said the group was responsible.

Balochistan Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti, confirming the incident, said the personnel of law-enforcement agencies were among the dead and injured.

“Such attacks aiming to stop anti-polio campaigns have happened in the past as well, which have resulted in the deaths of many innocent people”. Another 23 people were wounded, he said.

Two groups made apparently competing claims of responsibility for Wednesday’s attack.

Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio remains endemic but attempts to eradicate it have been badly hit by opposition from militants and attacks on immunisation teams that have claimed more than 80 lives since December 2012. The area has been completely cordoned off and at least thirteen injured were shifted to hospitals.

Militants oppose polio vaccination, saying it is a Western conspiracy to sterilise Pakistani children. “We will not bow down before terrorists”, said Mr Bugti, adding that the blast was an effort to disrupt peace in Balochistan. However, Taliban militants and secular Baluch separatists have been operating in the region.

Both Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have condemned the blast. He expressed his resolve to root out terrorism from the country.