Afghan Girl

Above is what has come to be one of the most famous photographs of the 20th Century. Taken at the Nasir Bagh Refugee Camp in Pakistan sometime during 1984, the "Afghan Girl" was featured in the June 1985 edition of National Geographic. Featuring a 12 year old Afghan refugee named Sharbat Gula, the story of her expulsion from her home in Afghanistan touched millions and sparked a world-wide pro-refugee movement that has changed hundreds of thousands of war-torn Afghans' lives.

Living in the midst of the Afghan-Soviet war that raged on for nine long years, Gula was orphaned after the Soviet helicopter gun ships destroyed her village, forcing her and her siblings to cross the perilous border to the refugee camps set up in Pakistan. There, while attending school, she came in contact with photographer Steve McCurry, who asked to take her photograph. Her haunting and haunted sea-green eyes are the main subject of the picture that has touched so many. They stay with those who see them, reminding them of the atrocities of war, as well as the people who are subjected to them. They scream of the terror the war-drained people of Afghanistan have experienced since the beginning of the Soviet occupation in 1979, the civil war that followed shortly after, and even today as us Americans continue to battle the terrorists that hide among the countless caves and mountains in the lawless provinces across the nation. They demonstrate the hard ships and losses each and every citizen of the distraught country have gone through. And finally, they explain to us the dark side of being one of the few survivors, from the meaning of living in a haunted world, surrounded by the deaths and dying of others to the poverty they face day in and day out.