Karachi: Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai visited a school in Karachi on Tuesday, stressing the need to improve education standards, especially for girls.
Yousafzai, who is also a “United Nations Messenger of Peace” with special focus on girls’ education, is visiting Pakistan to assess the current situation in various parts of the country hit by the recent devastating rains and floods. .
In the first leg of her tour, she visited an elementary school in the central district of Karachi and stayed there for an hour.
She will visit Sindh’s flood-ravaged Dadu district on Wednesday and meet the victims.
According to Yousafzai’s non-profit organization, the Malala Fund, the purpose of her visit is to “focus international attention on the impact of the floods in Pakistan and reinforce the need for critical humanitarian assistance.”
She arrived in Karachi on Tuesday morning along with her parents amid tight security.
She is visiting her home country after four years, and the second time since she survived a 2012 terrorist attack by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a conglomerate of various militant groups, in the Swat Valley.
He last made a brief visit to his native Swat in March 2018.
Yousafzai, now 25, has been attacked by TTP militants for her role in promoting girls’ education in the region, which was plagued by militancy and a ban on women’s education a decade ago.
In December 2014, she shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Indian child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, making her the youngest ever laureate.
Losses and Damage Caused By Floods
A combination of torrential rains – 10 times more than normal – and apocalyptic floods have killed nearly 1,700 people across Pakistan since mid-June, in addition to submerging a third of the country.
According to government estimates, it will cost $30 billion to repair the massive disaster.
A soggy monsoon, coupled with widespread flooding, has damaged nearly 45 percent of the country’s crops, posing a serious threat to food security.
Monsoon spells often wreak havoc in the South Asian region, but climate change and global warming have increased their severity and unpredictability in recent years.
