Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed “Afghan Girl” whose 1985 photo in National Geographic became a symbol of her country’s wars, medical and security was deported today, officials said.
According to Reuters report, the police took her from a hospital in Peshawar, where she was being treated for Hepatitis C, and handed her over to the Afghan officials at the Torkham border. She was arrested last month for living illegally in Pakistan.
Asmatullah Wazir, an official at the border told AFP “We have deported Sharbat Gula to Afghanistan. She crossed the border to Afghanistan at around 2:30am. She was also accompanied by her four children.”
Another security official who did not want to be named said that “We took Sharbat Gula from the hospital in a convoy and delivered her to the Afghan border authorities at Torkham.” He added that at the time of her transfer to the border, she was heard praying for Pakistan and all the people who helped her and her family during their time in Pakistan.
According to the report, she will be flown to Kabul later on Wednesday, where President Ashraf Ghani is expected to host a function in her honour.
Last week, she told AFP news agency “Afghanistan is only my birthplace, but Pakistan was my homeland and I always considered it as my own country.”
“I had decided to live and die in Pakistan but they did the worst thing with me. It’s not my fault that I born there (in Afghanistan). I am dejected. I have no other option but to leave.”
Gula also said that she originally came to Pakistan as an orphan, around 4 or 5 years after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
