Malala Yousafzai returns to Pakistan for first time since Taliban assassination attempt
Nobel laureate meets with prime minister and top officials
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Your support makes all the difference.Malala Yousafzai has returned to Pakistan for the first time since the Taliban tried to kill her for advocating better education for girls.
The 20-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner met with prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in Islamabad, having been escorted from the airport under tight security. Pakistan’s information minister, Maryam Aurangzeb, and senior government officials were also present at the meeting.
Opposition leader Imran Khan‘s party welcomed her return as a sign of the defeat of extremism in the country.
However, Ms Yousafzai was unlikely to travel to her home region of Swat in north-western Pakistan due to security threats against her, a relative and security sources said.
Ms Yousafzai was just 15 but already known for her activism when Taliban gunmen, in October 2012, boarded the school van in which she was riding and demanded to know “who is Malala?” before shooting her in the head.
Two of her classmates were also injured. In critical condition, Ms Yousafzai was flown to the garrison city of Rawalpindi before being airlifted to Birmingham in the UK.
Her career as an activist had begun in early 2009, when she started writing a blog for the BBC about her life under Taliban occupation and promoting education for girls in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The hardline Islamist movement blew up girls’ schools and imposed a strict interpretation of sharia Islamic law during their rule over Swat.
In 2014 she became the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
On 23 March, Pakistan’s national day, Ms Yousafzai tweeted: “On this day, I cherish fond memories of home, of playing cricket on rooftops and singing the national anthem in school. Happy Pakistan Day!”
Her visit to her home country is expected to last several days.
Additional reporting by agencies
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