Sharbat Gula

 

 



Back in 1985, in the Nasir Bagh Afghan refugee camp, photographer Steve McCurry photographed a 12-year-old Afghani girl with haunted sea green eyes. The picture went on to captivate the world, becoming the symbol of a cruel war that spanned twenty-three years; and yet, not one person in the Western world could name her.

Published on National Geographic Magazine’s front cover in June 1985, the picture triggered countless reconnaissance missions and searches across the plains of Southern Asia, which all proved fruitless. Finally, in 2002, a National Geographic team returned to Afghanistan for one last search, and chanced upon the girl’s brother, who sent word back to a snowy village at the foot of the Tora Bora mountains. Finally, the two-decade long mystery was solved: the elusive Afghan girl’s name is Sharbat Gula, and her story is one of sadness, loss and survival.

In the years before that iconic photo, Sharbat had lost her parents in bombings, and trekked to Nasir Bagh with her four siblings and frail grandmother, braving snow-covered mountains and harsh weather conditions. After she left the refugee camp, she returned to her native village, where she married and bore four children (one of whom later died). Sharbat now lives with her family in harsh poverty, but relative peace. Whilst her brother ponders that she has never experienced a happy day, the story of the girl with breathtaking sea green eyes lives on, symbolising the hope, strength and survival of a nation.