At least 15 people were killed in a blast apparently targeting police outside a polio vaccination centre in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Wednesday, according to officials.

The officers had been gathering outside the centre to accompany polio workers for the third day of a vaccination campaign in the province of Balochistan, of which Quetta is the capital.

‘There are 15 dead, including 12 police, one paramilitary, and two civilians,’ a local police official told AFP, adding that at least 10 people had been wounded, nine of whom were police and one a civilian.

A doctor at Sandeman hospital in the city confirmed the toll.

‘So far 15 bodies have been brought to the hospital,’ he told AFP.

‘We are living in a war zone and I can’t say anything about the nature of the blast,’ Sarfaraz Bugti, Balochistan home minister, told media in Quetta, adding that officials were investigating.

 ‘Eyewitness at the site said they heard firing after a loud blast rocked the area.’

‘The blast was apparently carried out by a suicide bomber,’ said Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti, speaking to media after the blast.

‘Police and rescue workers reached the site soon after the blast, while security forces have cordoned off the area. The nature of the blast is unknown as yet.’

‘Wednesday is the third day of a three-day anti-polio campaign which was launched in Quetta and other districts of Balochistan on Monday.’

‘The campaign is to target 2.4 million children under the age of five. Over 55,000 children of Afghan refugees are to be immunised under the campaign.’

‘Polio teams were being dispatched from the polio centre targeted today in the blast, security sources said.’

‘Pakistan remains one of only two countries on the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) list of polio-endemic countries.’

‘Polio workers have long been targeted in the country due to rumours that the polio immunisation drive is a front for espionage or a conspiracy to sterilise Muslims. The rumours have made inhabitants of lesser-developed parts of the country more wary of allowing immunisation.’