Balochistan: Polio drive takes a hit

Daily Times

Balochistan has become the scene of yet another tragedy, this time in the form of a health worker shot dead in cold blood by masked gunmen. A polio vaccination team was going from door to door in Quetta to administer polio drops to infants, a day after a three-day nationwide campaign took off with great gusto, when unknown gunmen fired at them from their motorbikes. One of the workers was killed instantly. Needless to say, this incident has caused a huge setback in the province’s anti-polio drive, suspending services in some areas indefinitely. This is not just a tragedy, it is a huge loss for all those children who will be at the mercy of this debilitating disease, which is spreading like wildfire in all those areas where conspiracies, extremist mindsets and illiteracy rule supreme. Such an occurrence can, unfortunately, be expected in a place like FATA or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where mullahs have completely banned immunisation campaigns, but to see the kind of oppressive mentality that castigates polio immunisation as being the evil doing of the US to make Muslims sterile move into other areas is disturbing indeed. If ever there were an award for absolute nonsense, it would go to this sort of mindset. Now the militants have turned their ire towards actual aid workers who are now putting their lives at risk to make sure that the children of this country have a future. Balochistan has been the home of much volatility with the nationalist insurgency taking centre-stage. However, extremist attacks in the shape of sectarian killings have been on the rise in the province with Shia Hazaras being marked for death by the dozens. Now, it seems all is fair in this jihadi war including the murder of health workers toiling for the betterment of society. It is alarming to see that murderous fanaticism is not just contained to one backwater area of the country — FATA and the like — but is infiltrating other provinces, seeping into the core of the national fabric. If this continues, health and aid projects will be cancelled altogether leaving us a pariah nation, shunned by the global community, thereby putting more lives at risk from deadly diseases that the world has worked hard to eradicate.