FILE PHOTO – Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai attends a news conference in Oslo December 9, 2014. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett/File Photo
By Kay Johnson and Asif Shahzad
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Nobel laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai returned to her native Pakistan on Thursday, six years after she was shot by Taliban gunmen over her advocacy for schooling for girls.
Pakistani station Geo TV showed footage of Yousafzai at Islamabad’s international airport walking to a car escorted by a security convoy.
At age 17, Yousafzai became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her education advocacy.
Now 20, she is making her first visit to Pakistan since 2012, when masked gunmen stopped and boarded a bus taking her home from school and shot her in the head.
Last week on Twitter, Yousafzai expressed a longing for her homeland. She now lives in Great Britain.
“On this day, I cherish fond memories of home, of playing cricket on rooftops and singing the national anthem in school. Happy Pakistan Day!” she wrote on March 23.
After surviving the attack, Yousafzai was airlifted abroad and underwent surgery.
The Pakistani Taliban, who seized control of her hometown in Pakistan’s Swat Valley before being pushed out by the army in 2009, later claimed the attack in response to her blog for the BBC Urdu service advocating girls’ education.
The hardline Islamist movement blew up girls’ schools and imposed a strict interpretation of sharia law during their rule over Swat.
Unable to return to Pakistan after her recovery, Yousafzai moved to Britain, setting up the Malala Fund and supporting local education advocacy groups with a focus on Pakistan, Nigeria, Jordan, Syria and Kenya.
Earlier this month, a new girls’ school built with her Nobel prize money opened in Shangla, near her home district of Swat.
Yousafzai is currently studying at Oxford University.
While she is arguably the most recognisable Pakistani in the world, Yousafzai – known almost universally as Malala – is a polarising figure at home.
She is frequently attacked by conservative Pakistanis as portraying her country in a bad light and seeking her own fame.
(Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Paul Tait and Michael Perry)
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