Pakistani child activist Malala Yousafzai, who shot in the head by the Taliban, is slowly improving but will remain sedated in intensive care for at least another 24 hours, a relative said on Thursday.
The shooting of Yousafzai on a school bus in the scenic Swat valley has been denounced worldwide and by the Pakistani authorities, who have offered a reward of more than $100,000 for the gunmen.
Two of her school friends were also injured. There are mounting questions about how the attack could have happened and how the perpetrators simply walked away in an area with a visible police and army presence.
"Doctors have told us her condition is improving," said Mehmoodul Hasan, one of Malala's relatives at the military hospital in the northwestern city of Peshawar where she is being treated.
"She has been given sedatives for the next 24 hours and after that doctors will examine her and tell us about her condition," Hasan said.
US President Barack Obama, UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Pakistani leaders have expressed horror at the attack on a girl who campaigned for the right to an education during a two-year Taliban insurgency which the army said it had crushed in 2009.
US President Barack Obama, UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Pakistani leaders have expressed horror at the attack on a girl who campaigned for the right to an education during a two-year Taliban insurgency which the army said it had crushed in 2009.
Obama believed the shooting was "reprehensible and disgusting and tragic", said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
"Directing violence at children is barbaric, it's cowardly, and our hearts go out to her and the others who were wounded as well as their families," he said.
Malala won international prominence after highlighting Taliban atrocities in Swat with a blog for the BBC three years ago, when the Islamist militants burned girls' schools and terrorised the valley before the army intervened.