(NEW YORK) — Education activist Malala Yousafzai has returned to her native Pakistan to support people devastated by the recent floods, according to a family source.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate landed in Karachi Tuesday and will stay in Sindh to show solidarity with flood victims, according to the source. She is expected to stay for a few days and travel to flood-affected areas to talk directly with victims about their condition, the source said.
The extreme flooding this summer, caused by fierce monsoon rains, killed nearly 1,700 people, injured another 13,000 and affected over 33 million, according to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority. Millions of acres of crops were damaged and 18,000 schools were destroyed, impacting over 3 million children, officials said.
“Extreme flooding in Pakistan is sweeping away houses, schools and communities,” Yousafzai tweeted in August, noting that millions have been affected, “including in my home of Swat Valley.”
Her organization Malala Fund said it has been working to mitigate the impact of the flooding on girls’ access to education as well as help provide funding to partners that are providing direct flood relief.
Yousafzai’s return to Pakistan comes a decade after she survived an assassination attempt ordered by the Taliban because she spoke out for the right of all girls to go to school. On Oct. 9, 2012, on her way home from school, a Taliban terrorist stopped her school van, identified Malala, then 15, and shot her in the head.
A school van carrying female students was fired upon on Monday in Yousafzai’s native Swat Valley, killing the driver. Thousands of people in the region protested against increased violence in the region on Tuesday.
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