A bombing near a girls’ school in western Pakistan on Friday resulted in the tragic deaths of seven people, including five children, in an attack aimed at police protecting polio vaccine givers, authorities said.

“The targeted police van was carrying personnel tasked with protecting polio workers,” senior police officer Rahmat Ullah told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

He stated that “a girls’ school was located near the scene of the attack” in Mastung in Balochistan province.

The only countries where polio is endemic are Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, and vaccination teams are frequently targeted by militants campaigning against security forces.

“Seven people, including a police officer, five children and a shopkeeper, were killed in the attack in the city’s main market,” senior police officer Abdul Fatah told AFP.

Interior Minister Muhsin Naqvi had previously announced the death toll as three children and a police officer.

“Targeting children is an act of brutality,” he said in the statement.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion.

Earlier this week, two police officers guarding door-to-door polio vaccination workers in northwestern Pakistan were shot dead in an attack blamed on militants.

The attack came a day after Pakistan launched a week-long campaign aimed at vaccinating more than 45 million children over the age of five.

Pakistan has seen an increase in polio cases this year; At least 41 cases have been recorded so far in 2024, compared to six cases in 2023.

The country is also struggling with a resurgence of militant violence in its western regions since 2021, when the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan.

Islamabad accuses Kabul rulers of failing to root out militants who attack Pakistan from across the border.

The most active group in Balochistan is the Baloch Liberation Army, a separatist group that regularly targets Islamabad’s security forces and citizens from other parts of Pakistan.

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