Afghan Girl From Famous Cover Portrait Is Evacuated to Italy

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Associated Press, via US News and World Report

Afghan Girl From Famous Cover Portrait Is Evacuated to Italy

National Geographic’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.

By Associated Press | Nov. 25, 2021, at 11:31 a.m.

ROME (AP) — 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 gained international fame in 1984 as an Afghan refugee girl, after war photographer Steve McCurry’s photograph of her, with piercing green eyes, was published on the cover of National Geographic. McCurry found her again in 2002.

In 2014, she surfaced in Pakistan but went into hiding when authorities accused her of buying a fake Pakistani identity card and ordered her deported. She was flown to Kabul where the president hosted a reception for her at the presidential palace and handed her keys to a new apartment.

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Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/entertainment/articles/2021-11-25/afghan-girl-from-famous-cover-portrait-is-evacuated-to-italy

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Thu Feb 26, 2015

national geographic green eyes thirty years later

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1018730875

[Archae]

1. Some news to really be Thankful for.

https://twitter.com/i/events/1463973649472491526

[Goonch]

2. 🖖‍;-{)

[COL Mustard]

3. I Thought She Was Beauitiful Back Then....

Didn't realize she was only about 14. I'm glad she got out and I hope she's safe today.......

[calimary]

4. Those eyes ... !!!

Still beautiful.

[OnlinePoker]

7. What those eyes have probably seen, though. n/t

[COL Mustard]

9. We'll Never Know The Trauma She's Been Through

And probably thought it was normal.

[Hortensis]

16. Read SFROYH's post and article. She was at class in a religious school

when a strange man came in and accosted her. She was forced to allow him to take her picture, posing her in a way she would never have behaved. As her parents would never have allowed had they been there to protect her. That's what her eyes say. She's angry about that picture. The text of the article lied about her, as well as the picture.

[Shellback Squid]

5. not a girl anymore, thay had a follow up story about her a few years back, 10 years back I believe

[Hortensis]

17. The Afghan government provided her with a nice home in 2017 and a stipend

for life after being deported from Pakistan to Afghanistan, part of the sequelae of her fame from that picture, also in her past now. What I read didn't say where her children, grown now, are.

[The Jungle 1]

6. Well I will not hold back.

She has probably lived a difficult life in that sick society. I believe it shows on her face.

[Sanity Claws]

8. That is what I saw in her face

As a child, her face showed fear and uncertainty. As an adult, her face shows hardship. Poor woman has not had an easy life.

[Martin68]

10. While she is one among thousands who deserve to be evacuated, I will never forget

seeing her striking face on the cover of my copy of the magazine when it arrived in the mail.

[LeftInTX]

11. Here is another image from the 1984 photoshoot

[alphafemale]

12. That one looks like she might be hiding a smile.

I wish she would have had a better life.

Hopefully she can have that now.

[LeftInTX]

13. I read that she did not want her uncovered face photographed

[twodogsbarking]

14. Was she compensated for one of the most famous photos ever?

Will she be?

[SYFROYH]

15. If you read this follow-up story, you'll not see pics of Sharbat Gula the same.

At least, that was my experience.

You'll Never See the Iconic Photo of the 'Afghan Girl' the Same Way Again

https://thewire.in/media/afghan-girl-steve-mccurry-national-geographic

When Sharbat Gula finally saw the cover that would make her face world-famous, she felt, she later said, “nervous and very sad”.

When the photograph was first published in 1985 and the magazine circulated to millions of readers worldwide, it had only one sentence about her (besides the original caption, ‘Haunted eyes tell of an Afghan refugee’s fears’). It said her eyes were “reflecting the fear of war”.

This is false, Northrup says. The fear in her eyes is that of a student interrupted at school by a male stranger invading her space, her personal boundaries and her culture and leaving without even having learned her name.