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| Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, right, meets with National Geographic’s famed green-eyed “Afghan Girl” Sharbat Gulla at the Presidential palace in Kabul. (Rahmat Gul/Associated Press) |
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s president on Wednesday welcomed
home Sharbat Gulla, National Geographic’s famed green-eyed “Afghan
Girl,” just hours after she was deported from Pakistan, the latest in
the odyssey of the globally recognized refugee.
Gulla’s
deportation came after a regional court in the Pakistani city of
Peshawar convicted her on charges of carrying a forged Pakistani ID card
and staying in the country illegally.
The case has drawn
international attention and criticism of Pakistani authorities over
their perceived harsh treatment of Gulla — and other Afghans who
Islamabad says will be expelled as illegal immigrants.
Gulla
gained international fame as an Afghan refugee girl in 1984, when war
photographer Steve McCurry’s photograph of her, with piercing green
eyes, was published on National Geographic’s cover. McCurry found her
again in 2002.
In 2014, she went into hiding after authorities
accused her of buying fake Pakistani documents. She was arrested in late
October and the Peshawar court earlier this month ordered her deported.
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| "Afghan Girl, 1984" by photographer Steve McCurry. (STAN HONDA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES) |
Earlier
Wednesday, Gulla and her four children were handed over to Afghan
authorities at the Torkham border crossing, about 60 kilometers (37
miles) northwest Peshawar.
From
there she was flown to Kabul where President Ashraf Ghani and his wife
Rula hosted a reception for Gulla at the presidential palace. Ghani also
handed her keys to a fully-furnished apartment.
“As a child,
she captured the hearts of millions because she was the symbol of
displacement,” Ghani said of Gulla. “The enormous beauty, the enormous
energy that she projected from her face captured hearts and became one
of the most famous photographs of the 1980s and up until the 1990s.”
“It is a privilege for me to welcome her. We are proud to see that she
lives with dignity and with security in her homeland,” Ghani said.
Peshawar
official Fayaz Khan said Gulla, a widow, and her children were taken by
convoy to the border with Afghanistan before dawn Wednesday.
She
looked visibly unhappy and before crossing, turned once to look back at
Pakistan, her home of many years, and murmured good wishes for the
Pakistani people, according to two customs officials at the scene. The
officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity
because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
After
the Peshawar court sentenced Gulla to 15 days in jail and a fine of
$1,000, she fell ill and was admitted to the city’s Lady Reading
hospital.
The hospital staff gave Gulla a bouquet of red roses as
she was taken away Wednesday, said Dr Mukhtiar Zaman, who described her
as still being weak from her illness.
Around 3 million Afghans
live in Pakistan, most of them as refugees who fled over the almost 40
years of continuous conflict. Pakistan recently stepped up their
expulsions, forcing tens of thousands across the border into
Afghanistan, where many find themselves rootless after so many years of
exile.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pakistan-deports-national-geographics-iconic-afghan-girl/2016/11/09/e1dca826-a643-11e6-ba46-53db57f0e351_story.html
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