Malala Yousafzai: Shot Pakistan girl moves hospitals

A 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot in
the head by Taliban gunmen is
being transferred to a new military
hospital with better facilities,
officials say.
Malala Yousafzai, in critical condition
two days after being attacked in the
north-western Swat Valley, left
Peshawar by helicopter for
Rawalpindi.
The Taliban, who accuse the young
activist of "promoting secularism",
have said they will target her again.
There have been widespread
protests in Pakistan against the
shooting.
Malala Yousafzai was being treated in
an intensive care unit in Peshawar
before doctors decided to move her
to the Armed Forces Institute of
Cardiology critical care unit in
Rawalpindi.
"Doctors have decided to shift Malala
to the Combined Military Hospital
(CMH) in Rawalpindi where medical
facilities are better," Maj Ishtiaq
Ahmad told the BBC.
One of the medical team treating her
said "neurologically she has
significantly improved" but that the
"coming days... are very critical".
Another doctor, Mumtaz Khan, told
AFP news agency that she had a 70%
chance of survival.
"Her condition is not yet out of
danger despite improvement,"
Masood Kausar, the governor of the
north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
province, was also quoted as saying.
'Barbaric mindset'
Pakistani officials have offered a 10m
rupee ($105,000; £66,000) reward for
information leading to the arrest of
the attackers.
Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez
Kayani, who visited Malala in hospital
in Peshawar on Wednesday, said it
was time to "stand up to fight the
propagators of such barbaric
mindset and their sympathisers".
Malala gained attention aged 11,
when she started writing a diary for
BBC Urdu about life under the
Taliban.
Under the pen-name Gul Makai, she
wrote about suffering caused by
militants who had taken control of
the Swat Valley in 2007 and ordered
girls' schools to close.
The Taliban were ousted from Swat
in 2009, but her family said they had
regularly received death threats.
They believed she would be safe
among her own community, but on
Tuesday, she was stopped as she
returned home from school in
Mingora, in north-western Swat, and
shot in the head.
Two other girls were injured, one of
whom remained in a critical
condition on Wednesday.
Schools in the Swat Valley closed on
Wednesday in protest at the attack,
and schoolchildren in other parts of
the country prayed for the girl's
recovery.
Protests were held in Peshawar,
Multan and in Malala's hometown of
Mingora and in Lahore.
Those taking part praised the girl's
bravery, while many condemned the
attack as un-Islamic.