HANGU DISTRICT, KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA PROVINCE — Suspected militants opened fire on a vehicle carrying police officers assigned to protect polio vaccination workers in Hangu district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan, on April 13, 2026, killing one officer and wounding four others. Two attackers were killed when police returned fire, and remaining suspects fled the scene.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Hangu is a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that borders Afghanistan. Pakistan had launched its second nationwide anti-polio campaign of the year shortly before the attack, according to a local police official.

Authorities in Pakistan have deployed thousands of police officers to protect polio vaccination workers following intelligence warnings of possible attacks. The Pakistani Taliban and local militant groups have carried out attacks on polio workers and the police assigned to protect them in northwestern Pakistan and elsewhere. Militants have targeted polio health workers and their police escorts, falsely claiming the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children. More than 200 polio workers and the police assigned to guard them have been killed in Pakistan since the 1990s, according to officials.

Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the only countries where polio has not been eradicated, according to the World Health Organization. Pakistan primarily uses door-to-door vaccination teams to reach children at their homes, and the country's polio eradication program has conducted anti-polio campaigns for years. Thirty-one polio cases were reported nationwide in Pakistan in 2025, and one case has been recorded so far in 2026.

The current vaccination campaign aims to reach more than 45 million children under five across all provinces and regions of Pakistan and is being conducted in coordination with Afghanistan to interrupt cross-border polio transmission and address remaining coverage gaps. First lady Aseefa Bhutto Zardari, the daughter of President Asif Ali Zardari and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, urged families to ensure their children are vaccinated during the weeklong drive and warned against complacency in efforts to eradicate the disease. During her tenure as prime minister, Benazir Bhutto had personally overseen initiatives aimed at eliminating polio.