Two Polio Volunteers Shot To Death In Northeastern Pakistan

“Two volunteers in a polio immunization campaign were shot to death on Sunday in the Swabi district of northeastern Pakistan, the police said,” the New York Times reports. “The two volunteers, one a local schoolteacher, were killed by two gunmen, the district police chief, Mian Saeed, said,” the newspaper notes (Khan, 6/16). “The vaccinators were attacked while they administer[ed] polio drops to children in Swabi area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, officials said,” Zee News writes, adding, “This was the second such attack in Swabi” (6/16). “No one claimed responsibility for the Sunday attack,” according to the Associated Press, which notes, “Some Pakistani militant groups oppose the vaccinations and accuse the workers of spying for the U.S.” (Khan, 6/16). “Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the Sunday killings …, calling their slayings ‘cowardly and inhuman,'” CNN adds (Smith, 6/17). Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif also “strongly condemned” the killings and on Sunday “paid tribute to the volunteers who lost their lives in playing their role for eradicating … polio from the country,” according to the Associated Press of Pakistan (6/16).

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