Malala's wounded classmates return to school
A gunman attacked Yousafzai, who campaigned for girls' education despite threats from the Taliban, on October 9 as she was leaving school in Swat. She was wounded in the head and her two school friends were also wounded.
The shooting provoked widespread outrage and brought Yousafzai, who is recovering in a British hospital, international admiration for her campaigning.
On Thursday, police escorted her teenaged classmates, Kainat Riaz and Shazia Ramazan, back to school.
"I am very excited to resume my studies once again in the school, but I will definitely miss Malala," Kainat, who was shot in the arm, told Reuters.
The two girls will have security escorts indefinitely, police said.
The attack on Malala, 15, followed years of campaigning that had pitted the girl against one of Pakistan's most ruthless Taliban commanders, known as Maulana Fazlullah.
Fazlullah and his men took over the Swat Valley and blew up girls' schools and publicly executed those they deemed immoral or tried to stand up to them. Eventually, the army launched an offensive to drive the militants out.
Though Fazlullah and his men have fled over the mountains, Swat remains tense and it seems inconceivable that Malala, who has become a symbol of resistance to Taliban efforts to deny women education, will be able to go home and back to school.
Her father has said in late October she would "rise again" to pursue her dreams after medical treatment.
Tens of thousands of Britons have called on the government to nominate Yousafzai for a Nobel Peace Prize for her activism.
Pakistan has 5 million children out of school, a number only surpassed by Nigeria, the UN cultural agency said in a report published this week. Two-thirds of those children are girls.
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The worst hypocrisy of GORA obsessed MOM DAD burger fascist secular class of PAKISTAN . They cried a lot upon malala but what about these two girls .didnt they also deserve treatment abroad ? arent these also a malala of someone .is this there fault that they dont used to write for BBC ?
So they return to the same school while Malala is getting a VIP treatment in London and is a short contender for a Nobel Peace Prize. Are you kidding me?!?!!?!?!?
May God bless u with a long and persprous life,
ALLAH bless these girls.
Brave girl! All the best! Btw I hope people don't turn this piece into another Malala vs Drone victims vs CIA agent blog.
Legends, role-models & Nishan-e-Haider worthy if it was applicable to living people...having the guts to return to the mountainous terrain of the terrorists.
Not to stray a little off-topic, how do India and [western part of] China not have more children out of school? I'm sure there must be at least 50m in each case. That said, Pakistan does have an alarmingly bad situation which should be addressed immediately. Since the matter is now a provincial subject, the majority party in each province should be held responsible for numbers/growth in education.