Taliban war against polio: two more volunteers wounded, after those slain yesterday
Peshawar
(AsiaNews / Agencies) - Three groups of anti-polio volunteers were attacked by assailants
in motion in Peshawar, Nowshera and Charsadda in the province of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa (North-west Pakistan), near the Afghan border. One
of the volunteers was wounded in Peshawar, in Charsadda instead a passer-by was
injured, but the volunteers unharmed. Yesterday,
five people involved in the vaccination campaign were killed in Karachi and Peshawar.
The
authors of these attacks are unknown, but it is almost certain that they are related
to the Taliban who for months have declared war against the anti-polio
vaccination. For
months, the Islamist guerrillas threatened to block the health campaign to
protest against the assaults of U.S. drones.
Pakistan
is one of three countries in the world - along with Afghanistan and Nigeria -
where polio is endemic. In
the country thousands of parents refuse to vaccinate their children against polio
under the pressure from imams and Islamic radicals.
The
killings yesterday, the bloodiest to date, took place in Karachi and Peshawar. All of the victims were women. In
Karachi, the volunteers were targeted as they went door to door to offer the
vaccine. The
attacks took place in two different neighborhoods, in Orangi Town and Baldia
Town a short distance from each other. The
police assumed that they were organized by the same group.
Yesterday,
another woman, 18 year-old Amna, also a member of the anti-polio campaign, was
killed in the village of Mathra, near Peshawar. The
day before, in Karachi, a man who worked for the World Health Organization was
killed.
Government
authorities have promised that these attacks will not stop the anti-polio
campaign.
.png)
17/12/2019 09:23
