Rome:
Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed Afghan girl immortalised many years in the past on a Nationwide Geographic cowl, has been evacuated to Italy, the Italian authorities mentioned on Thursday.
“Afghan citizen Sharbat Gula has arrived in Rome,” it mentioned in a press release, with out giving a selected date.
Rome mentioned it had responded to pleas from non-profit organisations working in Afghanistan to assist her depart the Taliban-controlled nation, “organising for her to journey to Italy as a part of the broader evacuation programme in place for Afghan residents and the federal government’s plan for his or her reception and integration”.
Gula grew to become arguably Afghanistan’s most well-known refugee after US photographer Steve McCurry captured her portrait in a Pakistan camp within the Nineteen Eighties and it was revealed on the entrance cowl of the Nationwide Geographic journal.
Gula mentioned she first arrived in Pakistan an orphan, some 4 or 5 years after the Soviet invasion of 1979, one in all hundreds of thousands of Afghans who’ve sought refuge over the border since.
She was deported again to Afghanistan in 2016 after she was arrested for dwelling in Pakistan on fraudulent identification papers.
Afghan refugee Sharbat Gula, 45, seems on as she meets with then Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani on the Presidential Palace in Kabul. (File)
In early September, Rome mentioned it had evacuated virtually 5,000 Afghans from Afghanistan after the Taliban seized energy in August.
Italy earlier this month mentioned it had granted citizenship to Afghanistan’s first girl chief prosecutor, Maria Bashir, after she had landed within the European nation on September 9.
Italy was one in all 5 international locations most concerned with NATO’s US-led mission in Afghanistan together with Germany, Britain and Turkey.
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