Malala visits women at flood camps in Pakistan

KARACHI: Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai on Wednesday met with victims of Pakistan’s devastating monsoon floods, in only the second visit to her home country since being shot by the Taliban a decade ago.

Catastrophic flooding this summer put one-third of Pakistan under water, displaced eight million people, and caused an estimated $28 billion in damage.

Authorities are also battling a health crisis of malaria, dengue and malnutrition that has broken out among flood victims living in thousands of makeshift camps across the country.

Yousafzai visited camps in rural Sindh province where she met with women who have fled their submerged villages, describing them as “very brave”, according to a statement released by the provincial chief minister’s office.

She also expressed her concerns over the impact on education, with two million children missing classes and 12,000 schools damaged.

Yousafzai was just 15 years old when the Pakistani Taliban - an independent group that shares a common ideology with the Afghan Taliban - shot her in the head over her campaign for girls education in the Swat Valley.

She was flown to Britain for life-saving treatment and went on to become a global education advocate and the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The militant group, known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), waged a years-long insurgency that ended with a major military crackdown in 2014.

But the group has resurged in the region since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul last year, with thousands of people protesting on Tuesday against the deterioration in security.

In his briefing, the Education Minister Sardar Shah said that many areas are still under water and after draining of water, the damaged schools will be identified.

Malala expressed her concern over destruction of educational institutions due to which education of children had been affected.

Malala sat down and talked to the flood affected women during her visit to the camp in the Chhandan area of Juhi and listened to their problems. She encouraged the flood affected women saying that they are brave as they were coping with these difficult times.

The Deputy Commissioner Sayed Murtaza Ali Shah also briefed the Nobel Laureate about the destruction caused by the floods in the district.

Earlier, Sindh Chief Minister Sayed Murad Ali Shah praised the visit of Yousafzai and said due to her visit, a strong voice about human tragedy will be spread all over the world.