15/10/2012

Pakistani Schoolgirl Shot By Taliban En-Route To UK For Specialist Treatment

A Pakistani schoolgirl who had campaigned for the rights of young females to an educations, is on her way to the UK for specialist medical treatment after being shot by the Taliban.

14-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck last Tuesday while she sat with classmates on a school bus about to drive students home after morning classes in Mingora, a city in the Swat valley.

The attack prompted widespread revulsion in Pakistan and abroad. It also raised fresh questions about the state's ability to tackle militancy.

Malala's life was saved by neurosurgeons in a Pakistani military hospital and she has since been in intensive care.

Doctors have recommended she be transferred to a UK centre "which has the capability to provide integrated care to children who have sustained severe injury", a Pakistani military spokesman said.

The flight left Rawalpindi on Monday morning. She is travelling with an army intensive care assistant on a specially equipped air ambulance leased from the UAE and will be treated in Birmingham at the Queen Elizabeth hospital, an NHS hospital with a specialist major trauma centre.

The Foreign Office said the move followed an offer by the UK government to assist Malala in any way that it could.

The Pakistani government is bearing the costs of transportation and treatment.

The Taliban issued a statement claiming it was obligatory to kill anyone "leading a campaign" against Islamic law, and warned it would again attempt to kill her if she recovered from her injuries.

Police have arrested at least three suspects in connection with the attack but the two gunmen who carried out the shooting remain at large.

(H)


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