Killers Target Pakistan's Polio Workers

Rukhsana Bibi weeps next to the body of her daughter Madiha, a slain polio-eradication worker, in an ambulance outside Jinnah Hospital in Karachi on December 18. (Reuters/Akhtar Soomro)

The bodies of two female polio-eradication workers lie in the morgue of Jinnah Hospital in Karachi on December 18, when six killings and a further attack all targeted such volunteers. (Reuters/Akhtar Soomro)

A rescue worker inspects blood-stained paperwork that was being carried by Nasima Bibi, who was shot and killed by gunmen in Karachi on December 18. (Reuters/Athar Hussain)

The feet of a slain antipolio worker are tied by rescue workers after her body was brought to Jinnah Hospital morgue in Karachi on December 18. (Reuters/Akhtar Soomro)

Women wait with their children for polio vaccinations on the second day of a vaccination campaign in western Afghanistan in October. Attackers have targeted health workers there, too, including a deadly shooting in eastern Afghanistan on December 1. (AFP/Aref Karimi)

Antipolio worker Hilal Khan receives treatment at a Peshawar hospital after he was shot and gravely injured by unidentified gunmen on December 19. (Reuters/Khuram Parvez)

Pakistani polio-vaccination workers demonstrate against the recent killings of their colleagues in Islamabad on December 19. Militants suggest "infidels" are behind polio-eradication efforts. (AFP/Aamir Qureshi)

A polio worker gives polio vaccine drops to a child at Lady Reading hospital in Peshawar on December 19. (Reuters/Fayaz Aziz)

A polio-vaccination worker gives polio vaccine drops to a young girl in Peshawar, Pakistan on December 19. (AFP/A. Majeed)

A woman from the All Pakistan Lady Health Workers Welfare Association defaces a poster that condemns the polio-eradication drive during a protest in Islamabad against the recent killings. (Reuters/Faisal Mahmood)