Four polio immunisation workers were abducted by unidentified armed men in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Tank district after being fired upon, The Express Tribune reported on Monday night.
The abduction took place in a village in the Sheikh Attar union council. Details about who was responsible and where the workers were being held were not immediately available.
A second abduction ends with release
In a separate incident, two members of a vaccination team were kidnapped by armed men in the Azam Warsak area of Lower South Waziristan. Both vaccinators were released later.
Sources told the Tribune the suspects in that incident were affiliated with the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The report did not say who was behind the Tank abduction.
Why this is happening now
The abductions took place during a national polio campaign. A sub-national round started on Monday, November 2, and runs until November 8 in 97 districts, aiming to give drops to nearly 24 million children under five, as our earlier report on the new polio case in Khyber explained.
The incidents “have raised concerns over the security of polio vaccination teams working in the remote region”, the Tribune said, where teams “continue to face threats while carrying out the immunisation campaigns”.
The latest polio count
A day earlier, the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) for Polio Eradication confirmed Pakistan’s seventh polio case of the year, in a 13-month-old girl from Jan Baz union council in Bara tehsil, Khyber district. Of the seven cases in 2026 so far, six come from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and one from Sindh, the NEOC said. Dawn’s report on the same case called it the eighth, and the difference has not been settled.
Background: risky work
Polio teams in the region “continue to face threats while carrying out the immunisation campaigns”, the Tribune said, and insecurity has made it harder to reach children in some districts. Earlier this year the fifth case was reported in Bannu, where insecurity has complicated vaccination work.
The Tribune, citing the NEOC, says Pakistan has reduced polio cases by 99.8 per cent, from an estimated 20,000 a year in the early 1990s to 31 in 2025, which is why the remaining cases and the safety of teams who reach the last unvaccinated children matter so much.
What we know, and what we don’t
- Known: four workers were abducted in Tank, and two were abducted and released in Azam Warsak.
- Known: the campaign is under way and aims to reach nearly 24 million children.
- Unknown: who abducted the four workers, where they are, and whether any ransom or demand has been made.
- Unknown: whether the campaign has been paused in Tank or Lower South Waziristan; the report does not say.
Why it matters
Vaccinators are the only way the vaccine reaches children in remote villages. If teams cannot work safely, children in the areas that most need protection are the least likely to be reached. With six of this year’s seven cases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the safety of these teams matters for the national eradication effort.
What to watch: whether the four workers are freed safely, and whether the authorities explain what protection the teams get in Tank and the tribal districts.
This article draws on reporting by The Express Tribune and Dawn.
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