Malala Returns Home, Breaks Out Sobbing

Youzafzai flanked by heavy security in Pakistan
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Mar 31, 2018 10:27 AM CDT
Malala Returns Home, Breaks Out Sobbing
Students of the school of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai flash victory sign in her hometown of Swat Valley in Pakistan, Friday, March 30, 2018.   (AP Photo/Naveed Ali)

Pakistan's Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai on Saturday arrived in her hometown for the first time since a Taliban militant shot her there in 2012 for advocating girls' education, the AP reports. Yousafzai and her family arrived in a helicopter provided by the Pakistani military, which took her to the town of Mingora in the Swat Valley from Islamabad. She had arrived in the capital before dawn on Thursday flanked by heavy security and plans to return to Britain on Monday. Yousafzai, 20, won international renown after she was shot by the Taliban in Mingora. She then moved to the United Kingdom to continue her education and became the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

Yousafzai entered her childhood home Saturday accompanied by her father, mother, and brother. She sobbed upon entering the home where relatives, former classmates, and friends had been anxiously waiting since morning to welcome her with flowers and hugs. Youzafzai says she waited for the moment for more than five years and often looked at Pakistan on the map, hoping one day to return. She said she plans to permanently return to Pakistan after completing her studies in Britain. "It is still like a dream for me, am I among you? Is it a dream or reality," she says. Youzafsai later returned to Islamabad, where she met with human rights activists.
(More Pakistan stories.)

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