'Afghan Girl' Sharbat Gula evacuated to Italy, flees Taliban terror

Horrors since the Taliban's recent takeover of Afghanistan doesn't seem to settle down and visuals of people trying to flee the war-torn country by clinging onto Aeroplanes cannot be easily forgotten. As Afghanistan completes 100 days under the totalitarian government with terrorists at its apex, striking images portraying the grave aftermath of the deadly wars that plagued the country remain etched in memory.

A widely known photograph named 'Afghan Girl' taken in the year 1984 by photojournalist Steve McCurry depicted the harsh circumstances that women in the country underwent during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The famous photograph featured a Pashtun girl living in the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan. The girl in the photograph, identified as Sharbat Gula, has now arrived in Italy as a part of evacuation efforts by the West from Afghanistan.

As per a report by The Guardian, the office of Italy's Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, had organized Sharbat Gula's evacuation after the latter requested help to leave Afghanistan. The Italian government will now aid Gula to get accustomed to life in Italy, the Guardian reported.

Gula rose to international fame after she was photographed by National Geographic Society photographer Steve McCurry. When Gula was around six years of age, her family fled the country during the Soviet-Afghan war and settled at the refugee camp in Pakistan sometime in the year 1984. 

She was a student in an informal school set up at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp. Captured on Kodachrome 64 colour slide film, with a Nikon FM2 camera, the photograph first appeared on the cover of the June 1985 edition of National Geographic, although Gula's identity was not disclosed. The photograph garnered acclaim for Gula's piercing 'green eyes', which were given various interpretations relating to the wars that plagued Afghanistan for a long period of time.

Many attempts were made by McCurry and others to trace down Gula, albeit in vain. However, unbeknownst to many, Gula married at a very early age of around 16 and parented three children. Her husband died in 2012 from hepatitis C. Her identity was unknown to many until she was tracked down in the mountains of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in 2002. She was forced to go into hiding in 2014 after being accused of possessing a fake Pakistani identity card. She flew back to Kabul where she was handed the keys to a new apartment by now-ousted President Ashraf Ghani.

Sharbat Gula's evacuation from Afghanistan comes at a time when the country is facing censure from world powers for failing to keep up its promises on providing safety and security to women and upholding their rights. Scenes of women protestors attacked by Taliban terrorists with rifle butts months ago gives us an idea of the harsh realities they had to deal with in their fight for equal rights and opportunities. The fact that one of the iconic figures in the nation's history of wars is evading the Taliban now, depicts the brutalities that the nation has seen over the years and in the recent past.

With Inputs from agencies

Image: PTI/AP