ISLAMABAD -- Continuing a militant campaign of violence against aid workers in Pakistan, gunmen Tuesday shot dead seven Pakistani teachers and health workers, six of them women, police officials said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But the shooting, in the Swabi district of the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, fit a pattern of attacks against charity and aid workers across the country in recent weeks that officials have attributed to the Pakistani Taliban. The militant offensive has brought a wave of international outrage, particularly because it has focused on vaccination and health workers in a country where polio and measles have made troubling gains. The attack Tuesday, near the village of Sher Afzal Banda, was conducted by two men on a motorcycle who followed a van taking the workers home and then opened fire on it with assault rifles, the police said. The victims worked for the private Pakistani aid group Support With Working Solution, which works in the health and education sectors. "They opened fire and killed six females and one male," Javed Akhtar, the group's executive director, said in a telephone interview. "One child, aged 7 to 8 years, miraculously survived." The aid group was founded in 1991 and, in conjunction with other aid groups, has focused on Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province and on South Waziristan in the tribal region, both deeply affected by poverty and militancy. Five of the dead were young women who worked as teachers at a ...

• published: 02 Jan 2013
• author: newsreadallaboutit