Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed Afghan girl who featured on the National Geographic Magazine’s iconic cover photo from the 1980s has been evacuated to Italy, according to reports. Gula has been granted refugee status by the Italian government as part of the plan to rescue and integrate Afghans after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
Sharbat Gula was photographed by the war photographer Steve McCurry in 1984 at the Afghan-Pakistan border when she was a 12-year-old Pashtun orphan. The famous photo of her with striking green eyes had featured on the cover of the National Geographic Magazine 1985.
Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Draghi’s office said that Gula’s photograph published in the National Geographic magazine “symbolises the vicissitudes and conflict of the chapter in history that Afghanistan and its people were going through at the time”.
A statement released from Italian Prime Minister Draghi’s office read, “In 1985, thanks to the photography of Steve McCurry, who the previous year had portrayed her very young in a refugee camp in Peshawar for the cover of National Geographic Magazine, Sharbat Gula acquired global notoriety, to the point of symbolizing the vicissitudes and conflicts of the phase history that Afghanistan and its people were going through,”
The 1984 photograph was that of an unknown girl till 2003 when McCurry again went to the region and tracked her down. Her identity was confirmed through Iris scan and other forensic techniques.
Earlier in 2016, Sharbat Gula was spotted in Pakistan where she had been accused of obtaining fake Pakistani identities and was later deported to Kabul. Sula had sought the help of the Italian government to escape Afghanistan which was backed by various organizations in Afghanistan. According to the official statement, Prime Minister Draghi himself arranged for her evacuation from Afghanistan after receiving several requests.
The statement noted, “Responding to the requests of those in civil society and in particular among the non-profit organizations active in Afghanistan which, after the events of last August, received Sharbat Gula’s appeal to be helped in leaving their country, the Prime Minister took it upon himself and organized her transfer to Italy within the broader context of the program for the evacuation of Afghan citizens and the government’s plan for their reception and integration,”
Gula is now a 40-year-old woman and is a mother of 4 children. She has also informed that her husband had passed away long back. She also suffers from Hepatitis C and needs treatment.