Pakistani activist Malala Yousufzai, 14, miraculously survived a vicious attack, after doctors successfully removed a bullet Wednesday from her neck – one day after she was shot by the Taliban for speaking out in support of education for women.
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According to the Associated Press, a team of army and civilian surgeons have been treating Malala in a military hospital in Peshawar, where she was airlifted after the Tuesday shooting in her hometown of Mingora in the country’s volatile Swat Valley.
As reported by the Associated Press:
The operation to remove the bullet took hours because there were complications, said the information minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Mian Iftikhar Hussain.
“She is improving. But she is still unconscious,” he said. “I can’t say a final word about her condition. A board of doctors is constantly examining her condition.”
Hussain said there was no decision yet whether the girl needed to be taken abroad for further treatment.
Malala is admired across Pakistan for exposing the Taliban’s atrocities and advocating for girls’ education in the face of religious extremism.
On Tuesday, a Taliban gunman walked up to a bus taking children home from school and shot her in the head and neck. Another girl on the bus was also wounded.
Malala began writing a blog when she was just 11 for the BBC about life under the Taliban rule and often criticized them for their abuse of women.
Malala began speaking out publicly in 2009 about the need for girls’ education. The Taliban strongly opposes education for women, and the group has claimed responsibility for the Tuesday attack.
SOURCE: AP
