14-year-old Pakistani girl injured by the Taliban has emergency surgery
The young girl who was shot by the Taliban because of her blog was rushed into surgery during the early morning hours Wednesday.
Malala Yousufzai had emergency surgery due to her head, neck, and face swelling on Tuesday night, according to NBC News. Doctors began surgery on her at about 2 a.m. and were finished by 5 a.m.
According to the neurosurgeon, Mumtaz Khan, the swelling had to do with damage caused by the bullet. Doctors operated on the damaged part of the brain and removed the bullet.
“Malala is still in critical condition and had been shifted to the intensive care unit of the hospital, but I am optimistic and by the grace of Allah she will recover,” Khan said.
Yousufzai has been blogging against the Taliban. The gunmen stopped a van that was driving Yousufzai and two other girls’ home from school. The men asked which girl was Malala and then began to open fire. Yousufzai is in stable condition but the bullet is lodged in her neck. The two girls have injuries that are not life threatening, according to CNN.
Yousufzai began blogging because of the Taliban’s restriction on education for females in her town. She wrote about the day-to-day battles of dealing with the Taliban and their restrictions.
“I have had such dreams since the launch of the military operation in Swat. My mother made me breakfast and I went off to school. I was afraid going to school because the Taliban had issued an edict banning all girls from attending schools,” she wrote.
Yousafzai was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2011 for her writings. She started being noticed in 2009 when she started her writings under the BBC’s Urdu service. In 2011 the Pakistan government gave her 1 million rupee ($10,500) in prize money for her braveness along with a peace award, according to Washington Post.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf said, “We have to fight the mind-set that is involved in this. We have to condemn it.”
“Malala is like my daughter and yours, too. If that mind-set prevails, then whose daughter would be safe?”
