‘Afghan Girl’ made famous by photo evacuated
ROME — National Geographic magazine’s famed green-eyed “Afghan Girl” has arrived in Italy as part of the West’s evacuation of Afghans following the Taliban takeover of the country, the Italian government said Thursday.
The office of Premier Mario Draghi said Italy organized the evacuation of Sharbat Gulla after she asked to be helped to leave the country. The Italian government will now help to get her integrated into life in Italy, the statement said.
Gulla, 49, gained international fame in 1984 as a 12-year-old Afghan refugee girl, after war photographer Steve McCurry’s photo of her, with piercing green eyes, was published on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic during the war created by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
McCurry took the photo during a trip to document Afghan refugees, many of whom fled the country due to the turbulence created by the conflict. Wrapped in a tattered maroon shawl, she fixes her gaze at the camera — meeting eyes eventually with millions of people once the picture went on National Geographic’ cover. The caption read: “Haunted eyes tell of an Afghan refugee’s fears.”
McCurry met Gulla at a refugee camp in Pakistan after she was forced to flee from her village in eastern Nangarhar province after it was bombed by the Soviets. She walked with her family, including her three sisters, brother and grandmother, across snowy mountains in order to get to Pakistan.
McCurry found her again in 2002 in Pakistan. “We left Afghanistan because of the fighting,” her brother, Kashar Khan, told National Geographic that year. “The Russians were everywhere. They were killing people. We had no choice.”
In 2014, she surfaced in Pakistan when authorities accused her of buying a fake Pakistani identity card and ordered her deported after spending 15 days in prison.
She was flown to Kabul where the then-president hosted a reception for her at the presidential palace and handed her keys to a new apartment.
“The woman who stands next to me became an iconic figure representing Afghan deprivation, Afghan hope and Afghan aspirations,” President Ashraf Ghani said at the time, according to Reuters. “All of us are inspired by her courage and determination.”
Yet once again after the Taliban ousted the Ghani government, Gulla felt she had to leave her country.
Italy was one of several Western countries that airlifted hundreds of Afghans out of the country following the departure of U.S. forces and the Taliban takeover in August.