Sharbat Gula, protagonist of the famous photo by Steve McCurry entitled "Afghan girl" and published on the cover of National Geographic Magazine in 1985, arrived in Rome after escaping from Afghanistan back in the hands of the Taliban.
Palazzo Chigi reports this, underlining that the presidency of the council "has propitiated and organized their transfer to Italy, in the broader context of the program for the evacuation of Afghan citizens and the government's plan for their reception and integration".
The Italian action, Palazzo Chigi recalls, responds "to the solicitations of those in civil society and in particular among the non-profit organizations active in Afghanistan who, after the events of last August, received Sharbat Gula's appeal to be helped to leave your country ".
The woman, Chigi recalls, "acquired planetary notoriety, to the point of symbolizing the vicissitudes and conflicts of the historical phase that Afghanistan and its people were going through".
THE SHOT - It was 1984 when the American McCurry, one of the photographers of Magnum Photos, was commissioned by National Geographic to make a reportage in the refugee camps on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
The photographer was walking between tents in Peshawar when he walked into a lecture room. Enraptured by the icy and enigmatic gaze of one of the pupils, he took that portrait of her. It was Sharbat, an orphan, twelve years old. The photo was a worldwide success and shed a spotlight on the plight of refugees.
The name remained obscure until 2002, when McCurry returned to look for her and found her. Gula agreed to be photographed again and the shot was released under the title "Found".
(Unioneonline / D)