The explosion occurred as polio workers each day before heading out on their vaccination rounds and security staff were reporting for duty, said a minister in Balochistan state of, Sarfaraz Bugti.
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Twelve of those killed in the city of Quetta were police officers, local police chief Rab Nawaz Khan said.
“I saw the suicide bomber running towards us, firing at us and then blowing himself up”, Samiullah, a security officer and one of the wounded, said.
The policemen had been gathering outside the centre to accompany polio workers on the third day of a vaccination campaign which are frequently targeted by Taliban and other Islamist militant groups in Pakistan.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) also claimed responsibility in a statement released by their spokesman, Muhammad Khorasani.
Jundallah spokesman Ahmad Marwat told CNN via text that this group was responsible and that it “will always target polio teams”.
The officials fear that there could be more deaths in blast as five of the injured were said to be in serious condition.
“Most of the security personnel were in their vehicles when they were attacked”, a witness, Mohammad Iqbal, said.
People transfer an injured policeman to a hospital in southwest Pakistan’s Quetta, Jan. 13, 2016.
Bodies and the injured were later shifted to civil hospital by rescue team, as security forces cordoned off the scene.
Pakistan is one of the three countries in the world where polio is endemic, and Taliban attacks have badly hampered vaccination campaigns.
The latest attack comes after the campaign against polio was relaunched in Quetta and other districts of Balochistan on Monday. “We won’t allow the nefarious designs of the terrorists to succeed, we will eliminate polio”, he said.
In his statement, the premier said government is committed to stamp out extremism from the country and operation will continue till elimination of all terrorism, reported Radio Pakistan.
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An Afghan official says a suicide bomber has detonated explosives near the Pakistani consulate in the capital of a volatile eastern province, killing at least two civilians.
