Monday, October 15, 2012

Malala Yousufzai Airlifted to Britain

It's a good thing. She was as good as dead if she stayed in Pakistan.

At the New York Times, "Schoolgirl Wounded by Taliban Is Airlifted to Britain":

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot by the Taliban last week for advocating girls’ education has been flown to Britain for emergency specialist care, the Pakistani military said on Monday.

Malala Yousafzai, 14, left an air base in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where she was being treated for head wounds in a military hospital, on an air ambulance sent from the United Arab Emirates.

In a statement, the military said she would receive immediate treatment for her skull, which was fractured after a bullet passed through her head, as well as “long-term rehabilitation including intensive neuro rehabilitation.”

Malala will be treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham in central England, a center which has specialized in the treatment of troops wounded in Afghanistan, Prime Minister David Cameron’s office said in a statement quoted by The Associated Press.

Pakistan said it would pay for her treatment.

A Pakistani military intensive care specialist accompanied her on the flight, which by midmorning Monday had stopped in the United Arab Emirates for refueling en route to Britain.

The mercy flight produced a sigh of relief of sorts among Pakistanis who have kept an anxious national vigil for Ms. Yousafzai since she was shot by a militant gunman last Tuesday as she returned from school in Mingora, the main town in the Swat Valley, in northwestern Pakistan.

The daughter of a schoolmaster, Ms. Yousafzai had become known for her eloquent and impassioned advocacy of education and children’s rights in the face of Taliban threats, which made her a potent symbol of resistance to the militants’ extremist ideology.
Actually, families better keep their kids close. I expect this is the beginning of a new reign of terror. See Der Spiegel, "Schoolgirl Shooting: Pakistanis Fear Resurgent Taliban in Swat Valley."

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