Gunmen killed three people working on a polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan on Wednesday, officials said, as the nationwide drive against the crippling disease suffered a third day of bloodshed.
Pakistani men carry an injured polio vaccination worker to hospital following an attack by gunmen in Peshawar on December 19, 2012. For the third day in a row, gunmen have attacked people working on a polio vaccination campaign, with the death toll rising to nine.
A female health worker and her driver were shot dead in Charsadda, near Peshawar, the main town of northwest Pakistan, police official Wajid Khan told AFP. A second police officer confirmed the incident.
Another worker shot and critically wounded in an earlier attack on the outskirts of Peshawar also died, doctor Ahmad Saqlain of the city's Lady Reading Hospital told AFP.
The UN children's agency UNICEF and the World Health Organisation suspended work on campaigns against polio in Pakistan Wednesday after the recent attacks.
UNICEF spokesman Michael Coleman told AFP the two organisations halted polio work in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces on Tuesday after attacks in Karachi and Peshawar, but extended the suspension nationwide after fresh bloodshed on Wednesday.