Targeted: Malala
Yousafzai, 14, spoke out about suffering under the Taliban regime
THE schoolgirl shot in the head and neck by the Taliban
is being brought to the UK for treatment.
A British medical team has flown to Pakistan to help
doctors looking after 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai and will now transfer her to the UK for 'prolonged treatment'.
Malala – an outspoken advocate for girls’ education and
critic of the Taliban – was shot as she
waited for a school bus last Tuesday in the northwestern district of
Swat.
Two classmates who were with her were also injured in
the gunfire.
The teenager's life was saved by neurosurgeons in a
Pakistani military hospital and she has since been in intensive care at a
military hospital in Rawalpind.
Doctors have decided she needs long-term care to help
her recover from the physical and psychological effects of the attack, and she
is being moved to a rehabilitation centre in Birmingham, according to local news
sources.
She is being transferred to the UK by an air ambulance
arranged by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Pakistani army
confirmed.
In a statement it said: 'The panel of doctors
recommended that Malala be shifted abroad to a UK centre which has the
capability to provide integrated care to children who have sustained severe
injury.
'Pakistan has arranged with the UAE for a specially
equipped air ambulance which will be used to transfer Malala to the UK. In order
to provide continuity of care, an army intensive care specialist will accompany
Malala on her flight.
'All expenses including transportation of Malala by
specially equipped air ambulance and treatment abroad will be borne by the
government of Pakistan.'
The shooting has provoked outrage in the country and
tens of thousands of people have since marched in Pakistan’s largest city,
Karachi, in support of her.
Protests: Pakistani
human rights activists have marched across the country to condemn the shooting
of Malala
The demonstration in the southern city of Karachi was
by far the largest since Malala and two of her classmates were shot on October 9
while returning home from school in Pakistan’s northwest.
Protests against the shooting have been relatively
small until now, usually attracting no more than a few hundred
people.
The political party that organised Sunday’s rally in
Karachi, the Muttahida Quami Movement, however called the Taliban gunmen who
shot the girl 'beasts' and said the shooting was an attack on'“the ideology of
Pakistan.'
Shooting: People rush
Malala to a hospital after she was shot and wounded in Swat, Pakistan last
week
Many of the demonstrators carried the young girl’s
picture and banners praising her bravery and expressing solidarity.
Malala earned the enmity of the Taliban for publicising
their behaviour when they took over the northwestern Swat Valley, where she
lived, and for speaking about the importance of education for
girls.
The group first started to exert its influence in Swat
in 2007 and quickly extended its reach to much of the valley by the next
year.
They set about imposing their will on residents by
forcing men to grow beards, preventing women from going to the market and
blowing up many schools - the majority for girls.
Malala wrote about these practices in a journal for the
BBC under a pseudonym when she was just 11.
After the Taliban were pushed out of the valley in 2009
by the Pakistani military, she became even more outspoken in advocating for
girls’ education.
She appeared frequently in the media and was given one
of the country’s highest honours for civilians for her bravery.
The Pakistani Taliban said they carried out the
shooting because Malala was promoting 'Western thinking.'
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