UN Slams D.I.Khan police van attack:
UN Slams D.I.Khan police van attack
New York: The United Nations has denounced as “despicable” the attack on a police van guarding polio workers in Dera Ismail Khan. The gun-and-grenade attack reportedly injured five policemen.
Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson to UNGS stated that “It’s not the first time that we’ve seen attacks on health workers. It’s not the first time we’ve seen attacks on people doing polio vaccination in Pakistan and other places”. He said this in response to a question at the regular noon briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.
The spokesperson Dujarric added that, “Sometimes we’re faced with a situation where you really run out of words. But it is despicable to target and attack people who are going out in communities in extremely challenging circumstances. They are trying to protect the lives of infants and babies from a preventable disease that is almost wiped out. Except for a handful of countries, and that all too often is due to a security situation where people actively work against health workers.”
Pakistan is one of the only two countries. The other being Afghanistan where polio is still prevalent despite relentless vaccination drives.
