# Afghan Girl Sharbat Gula: Iconic Photo, Life in Rome Today

*Culture, Art & Literature · Sofia Bellini · 2026-08-13*

## TL;DR

Sharbat Gula was photographed by Steve McCurry in 1984 at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan, and the image became iconic. She was identified in 2002 using iris recognition technology. After living in Afghanistan for years, she fled the Taliban takeover in 2021 and now resides in Rome, Italy, where she has started a new chapter of her life.

## Key facts

- Steve McCurry captured the photograph of Sharbat Gula in 1984 at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp near Peshawar, Pakistan.
- Sharbat Gula was identified in 2002 through iris recognition technology, which matched her eyes to the original photograph.
- After the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021, Sharbat Gula was evacuated to Italy as part of a humanitarian effort.
- Sharbat Gula now lives in Rome, where she has been reunited with her family and is adjusting to a peaceful life away from conflict.
- Her famous portrait, titled "Afghan Girl," appeared on the cover of National Geographic in June 1985 and remains one of the most recognized images in the world.

## The Face That Launched a Thousand Stories

In December 1984, photographer Steve McCurry pointed his camera at a young girl in the Nasir Bagh refugee camp near Peshawar, Pakistan, and captured an image that would become one of the most recognizable photographs in history. That girl was Sharbat Gula, an Afghan refugee whose piercing green eyes stared out from the cover of National Geographic magazine in June 1985. The Afghan Girl Sharbat Gula became a symbol of resilience and suffering, her gaze reaching millions of readers who had never set foot in a refugee camp.

McCurry was on assignment for National Geographic, documenting the lives of Afghan refugees displaced by the Soviet-Afghan War. The camp near Peshawar was crowded and dusty, filled with families who had fled their homes. At Nasir Bagh, he found a makeshift school where girls were being taught despite the chaos around them.

Inside that classroom, McCurry spotted a girl with striking green eyes. She was shy, and when he raised his camera, she covered her face with her hands. Her teacher encouraged her to lower them, telling her the world needed to see her story. The resulting photograph froze a moment of raw emotion. Her gaze was intense, haunted, and unforgettable. It showed the toll the war had taken on children who had lost their homes, their schools, and often their families.

That single frame did more than document a refugee crisis. It gave a face to the millions of people caught in conflict, and it made Sharbat Gula a global icon overnight. The image ran on the cover of National Geographic's June 1985 issue, and readers could not look away. Decades later, the photograph still carries the same power, reminding viewers of the human cost of war in a way that statistics never could.

## The Moment Behind the Lens

In December 1984, photojournalist Steve McCurry was on assignment for National Geographic, documenting the refugee camps scattered along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. His path eventually led him to Nasir Bagh, a sprawling camp near Peshawar, Pakistan, where the Afghan Girl Sharbat Gula would step into history.

Nasir Bagh was like so many camps of that era: crowded, dusty, and filled with families who had fled the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But tucked inside this landscape of displacement was something unexpected, a girls' school. McCurry walked in and found a classroom of 15 students, young girls who had lost their homes but not their will to learn. Among them sat a girl with eyes that stopped him cold. Her gaze was piercing, almost unnerving in its intensity, and it carried a weight that seemed far too heavy for her young face.

The photographer raised his camera, but the girl immediately hid her face behind her hands. She was shy, uncertain, and understandably wary of a stranger with a camera in a world that had already taken so much from her. It was her teacher who stepped in at that moment. The teacher gently encouraged the girl to uncover her face, telling her that the world needed to see her and hear her story. Only then did she lower her hands and look directly into McCurry's lens.

What he captured in that single frame was not a posed portrait but a raw, unfiltered moment. Her expression held sorrow and intensity in equal measure, a mixture of pain, resilience, and quiet defiance that would resonate with millions. McCurry later said he knew immediately that the photograph was special, though he could not have imagined that this Afghan Girl Sharbat Gula would become one of the most recognizable images in the history of photography. When the June 1985 issue of National Geographic hit newsstands with her face on the cover, the world stopped to look back at her.

## The Search for the Afghan Girl

Seventeen years after Steve McCurry captured those haunting green eyes on film, National Geographic launched an ambitious hunt to find the mysterious woman behind the iconic photograph. The search in 2002 was urgent, not just because of curiosity, but because the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan, where the photo was taken in December 1984, was on the verge of closing forever.

The team faced an almost impossible task. Hundreds of women came forward claiming to be the Afghan Girl Sharbat Gula, but McCurry had visual clues only he could recognize. The distinctive shape of her jaw, the particular curve of her lips, and those unforgettable eyes were etched into his memory. Some people the team interviewed insisted the girl was dead, a casualty of years of conflict and displacement.

Then came a breakthrough. A man approached the team and said he knew not just the girl, but her brother as well. The region where she reportedly lived was dangerous at that time, yet this man volunteered to travel there and bring her back. It was a risky journey through territory where outsiders were not welcome, but he was willing to make it.

When the woman finally arrived, McCurry was stunned. The face before him showed the ravages of two decades of hardship. In 2002, the photographer looked at a woman who appeared decades older than the girl he had photographed in 1984. The youthful smoothness was gone, replaced by weathered skin and deep lines. McCurry was shocked at how much she had aged in 20 years, but the reality of a life lived in refugee camps and under the shadow of war was written plainly on her face.

To confirm what his eyes already told him, the team turned to technology. Digital iris recognition, a technique still relatively new at the time, was used with assistance from the FBI. The unique patterns in her eyes matched those in the 1984 photograph with remarkable precision. The Afghan Girl Sharbat Gula had been found, alive and real, her identity confirmed by the very feature that had made her famous.

For McCurry, the reunion was emotional. Here was the subject of his most celebrated work, a photograph that had graced the cover of National Geographic in June 1985 and touched millions of viewers worldwide. The gifts National Geographic brought for her and her family were small compared to the weight of the moment. Two decades of separation collapsed in that meeting, and the photographer finally learned the story behind the face he had captured all those years ago.

## Sharbat Gula Today: Life in Rome

Sharbat Gula, the woman whose piercing green eyes became the face of Afghan refugees everywhere, now calls Rome, Italy her home. In 2021, following the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan, the Italian government organized her evacuation and resettlement at her personal request, helping her and her family reach safety in the Italian capital.

The journey from that dusty refugee camp in Pakistan to a new life in Europe took nearly four decades. When the Taliban swept back into power in August 2021, Afghanistan's future grew uncertain overnight, and for someone as recognizable as Afghan Girl Sharbat Gula, the danger felt especially close. She had already faced legal troubles in Pakistan in 2016 over fraudulent identity documents, and the shifting political landscape made her position increasingly vulnerable.

Italy's government stepped in during November 2021, organizing a special evacuation program that brought Gula and her children to Rome. The resettlement was part of a broader Italian initiative to welcome Afghan refugees who faced particular risks under the returning Taliban regime. For a woman who had spent much of her life in displacement, first as a child fleeing war, then as a widow raising children in difficult circumstances, the move represented another chapter in a long story of survival.

Rome, with its ancient streets and layers of history, seems a fitting place for someone whose face carries so much of the past. The city's Afghan community, small but growing, has offered Gula a measure of connection to her homeland. She has kept a deliberately low profile since arriving, a choice that makes sense for someone whose image is known around the world yet whose private life has rarely been her own.

Her story, stretching from the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in 1984 to the present day, mirrors the broader arc of the Afghan refugee crisis. The same conflict that scattered millions of Afghans across borders in the 1980s continues to displace families today. Gula's life has been shaped by forces far larger than herself, yet her resilience has been a constant thread, from the girl in the photograph to the woman rebuilding her life in a new country.

In Rome, she has found something that eluded her for decades: a measure of stability. The Italian government has provided housing and support as she adjusts to life in Europe. Whether she will ever return to Afghanistan remains an open question, one that depends on political realities she cannot control. For now, the woman whose eyes told the world about the cost of war lives quietly in the Eternal City, far from the refugee camps where her story began.


## Frequently asked questions

**Who is Sharbat Gula?**

Sharbat Gula is the Afghan woman whose piercing green eyes stared out from Steve McCurry's iconic 1984 photograph, making her the face of refugee suffering worldwide. She was an orphaned girl living in Pakistan's Nasir Bagh refugee camp when the picture was taken, and her identity remained unknown for nearly two decades.

**How was she identified?**

In January 2002, a National Geographic team tracked her down after a lengthy search, and digital iris recognition technology confirmed her identity with help from the FBI. The verification was definitive because the human iris, like a fingerprint, is unique to each person and remains unchanged throughout life.

**Where was the photo taken?**

The photograph was taken in December 1984 at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp near Peshawar, Pakistan, where Afghan families had fled after the Soviet invasion of their homeland. McCurry was on assignment for National Geographic, documenting the lives of refugees along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

**Why did she move to Italy?**

In November 2021, following the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan, the Italian government organized her evacuation and resettled her in Rome. She had requested to leave her home country, and Italy responded by helping her relocate to safety, where she has been living since.

**What happened to her after the photo?**

After the photograph made her famous, Sharbat Gula lived in obscurity for years, marrying and raising children while enduring the hardships of life as a refugee. She was briefly detained in Pakistan in 2016 over fraud charges related to her identity documents, and the ordeal brought her story back into the public eye before she eventually fled to Italy.

Canonical: https://curio.madeda.com/afghan-girl-sharbat-gula-iconic-photo-life-in-rome-today/