Islamabad - Nobel Peace Prize winner
Malala Yousafzai returned to her native Pakistan on Thursday,
six years after she was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen for
advocating greater education of girls.
Pakistani station Geo TV showed footage of Yousafzai at
Islamabad's international airport walking to a car escorted by a
security convoy.
Yousafzai is due to meet Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi
in a ceremony at his office but was unlikely to travel to her
home region of Swat due to security concerns, local media
reported.
Malala Yousafzai sits with her family in a VIP lounge of Islamabad Airport Islamabad, Pakistan. Picture: PTV/via REUTERS
At age 17, Yousafzai became the youngest recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her education advocacy, becoming a
global icon and education champion.
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.
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.
During her trip to Pakistan, which is expected to last
several days, Yousafzai is expected to stay in Islamabad and
meet friends and family at a hotel in the capital, Geo reported.
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.