The best friend of the 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban yesterday vowed to defy the extremists again and return to school with her.
Shazia Ramzan
watched in horror as classmate Malala Yousafzai was shot beside her on their school bus, before the gunman turned and shot her too.
Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, brave Shazia, also 14, who was hit in the shoulder and hand, said: ‘She will recover and we will go back to school and study together again.’
As Shazia sat up in her hospital bed, Malala was yesterday still critically ill in a hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, after being shot by the Taliban gunman as she travelled home on a school bus in Mingora in the strife-torn Swat Valley on Tuesday.
Malala, who from the age of 11 defied the Taliban to write a blog for the BBC championing education for girls, was targeted by the extremists, who believe girls should be kept at home and barred from school.In hospital in Peshawar, Shazia said Malala had told classmates she might be a target but refused to hide from the Taliban.
She also described the callous way the gunman shot Malala in the head and then turned his gun on her and another of Malala’s classmates before fleeing.
‘Malala told us she had been threatened by the extremists,’ she said. ‘She said she had been speaking too much against mujahideen [Taliban] and they might do something to her.’
Describing Tuesday’s attack, she said: ‘It was just a normal school day. We were coming home after our second-term exams. The bus was taking the usual route.
‘Then it suddenly stopped and two men confronted us. They asked, “Which one of you is Malala?” Some of the girls started to talk and then one of the men opened fire. All the girls started crying and shouting. Malala was hit in the head and fell to the floor unconscious. There was blood everywhere. I was in total shock.
‘Then the man with the gun fired at me and another girl and ran away. We were all just so traumatised and shocked. Everything happened so quickly.‘The bus driver raced us to hospital. It was chaotic because everyone was screaming and crying and Malala was lying on the floor in front of me.’
Shazia had been hit by two bullets. By yesterday, however, she was well enough to walk around her bed in the Combined Military Hospital. The third girl had comparatively minor injuries.Explaining the build-up to the attack, Shazia said: ‘Malala would talk to us about the dangers she was facing but refused to change the way she lived. She just said the extremists might do something to her because she had spoken out against them so much and they might want to harm her.
‘She knew something might happen but she never let it affect her. She refused to be anything other than a normal schoolgirl.’
Shazia said she was disgusted with the men who carried out the attack. ‘We don’t know who they were but I am sure they were the people Malala had been warned about,’ she said.
As she prepared to go home to her family, Shazia said her greatest wish was to return to school with Malala – even though the Taliban has threatened to return and kill Malala.
‘With the grace of God, I am completely all right now. Malala will recover soon too, I hope. We will go back to school and study together again.
‘I am praying for Malala and praying she can join her school friends again as soon as possible. The whole nation is praying for her and I am sure she will make a full recovery.’ Shazia’s father Muhammad Ramzan, 50, who runs a bakery in Mingora, said he was horrified by the attack.
‘We have never been enemies with anyone,’ he said. ‘I don’t know who did this. Malala was outspoken and she had told her classmates something like this could happen but we never imagined it would happen in this way.’Malala’s uncle Mehmood-ul-Hassan Yousafzai said her condition was improving. Doctors said the next 48 hours would be critical to her recovery.
No comments:
Post a Comment