Pakistan deports Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed “Afghan Girlâ€

Islamabad: Pakistan on Wednesday deported Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed “Afghan Girl” whose 1985 photo in the National Geographic became a symbol of her country’s wars, officials said.

Police escorted Gula overnight from a Peshawar hospital, where she had been staying since her arrest last month for living illegally in Pakistan, and handed over to Afghan authorities at the Torkham border.

Gula’s deportation comes amid Pakistani pressure to send 2.5 million Afghan refugees back home even though Afghanistan is facing a bloody Taliban insurgency and would struggle to look after so many returnees.

“We took Sharbat Gula from the hospital in a convoy and delivered her to the Afghan border authorities at Torkham,” said a senior security official. During her transfer back to Afghanistan, Gula, wearing a green burqa, was heard praying for Pakistan, its people and everyone who helped her and her family during their stay in the country, the official added.

Gula was flown back to Kabul, where President Ashraf Ghani would host a function in her honour. Public billboards were already up welcoming her back home. Gula was for years an unnamed celebrity after an image of her as a teenage Afghan refugee was featured on NatGeo’s cover in 1985.