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'Afghan Girl' from National Geographic magazine cover granted refugee status in Italy
November 26, 2021
The "Afghan Girl" made famous after featuring on the cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985 has been granted refugee status by Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi, according to an Italian government press office statement.
The striking portrait of then 12-year-old Sharbat Gula, a Pashtun orphan in a refugee camp on the Afghan-Pakistan border, was taken in 1984 and published the next year. Gula was tracked down decades later living in Pakistan, after no one knew her name for years.