Afghan girl in Rome

A portrait of the past and present, the Afghan girl Sharbat Gula in the famous photograph by Steve McCurry, has taken refuge in Italy.

Vita Gazette – When the calendars showed 1985, a sad looking green-eyed girl was on the cover of National Geographic magazine. The photograph that impressed almost everyone was taken by Steve McCury in a refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan. The reason he got so much attention lay in Gula’s eyes. His fearful, sad eyes told the story of a country, a people, and refugees around the world. It expressed the reflection of global and regional conflicts on individuals. Now those eyes tell a new story. But this time, fear is replaced by hope…

She was under 12 when Steve McCurry took the photo of her that has become the symbol of a nation. She had fled five years earlier after the Soviet invasion with her grandmother, brother and sisters. Both parents died. At first her name was not known, only the Pashtun ethnicity, so the photo is known as “Afghan Girl”. The Afghan girl pictured on the cover of National Geographic in 1985 is a woman with the same gaze, but with ‘is a trace on his face of the harsh and gruesome winds of the geography in which he lives! The Afghan girl is now in Rome … There is now a place for her in one of the hospitality projects, after a life spent on the run.

According to the statement released by the Prime Minister in Italy, Sharbat Gula asked non-governmental organizations for help to leave his country after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August. Italy, which has supported the evacuation process from Afghanistan since August, announced that Gula was also brought to Rome yesterday.