LONDON – Malala Yousufzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban for promoting girls’ education in her country, today defied her attackers by returning to a school in Britain where she underwent several surgeries.
“I am excited that today I have achieved my dream of going back to school,” she said after her first day of classes at Edgbaston High School for Girls in Birmingham.
“I want all girls in the world to have this basic opportunity. I miss my classmates from Pakistan very much but I am looking forward to meeting my teachers and making new friends here in Birmingham,” she added.
Malala has joined the girls in Year 9 and will be studying a full curriculum in preparation for selecting her subjects for GCSEs, the school said in a statement.
It also asked the media to “allow her to attend school without intrusion and to respect the privacy of other pupils and parents”.
Malala was returning home from school in Pakistan’s north-western Swat district on October 9 last year when gunmen stopped her bus and shot her in the head and the chest. The bullet entered just above her left eye, running along her jaw and “grazing” her brain.
Surgeons in Pakistan removed the bullet before she was air-lifted to the UK for life-saving treatment at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. The Taliban had said it shot Malala for “promoting secularism”, sparking international outrage.
