A Life Revealed - Photo Gallery - National Geographic Magazine

Current Issue September 2008
Table of Contents ››

- ADVERTISEMENT -

Afghan Girl Revealed

Seventeen years after she stared out from the cover of National Geographic, a former Afghan refugee comes face-to-face with the world once more.

/galleries/bcove/assets/29c28178-ccdd-452c-88ee-222992b4a86c.jpg /galleries/bcove/assets/3edd7286-12a5-49cf-959d-33064e651570.jpg National Geographic in June 1985 was an enigma for 17 years. What was her name? Had she survived? This past January photographer Steve McCurry joined a crew from National Geographic Television & Film to methodically search for her. They showed her photograph around the refugee camp in Pakistan where McCurry had encountered her as a schoolgirl in December 1984. Finally, after some false leads, a man who had also lived in the camp as a child recognized her. Yes, she was alive. She had left the camp many years before and was living in the mountainous Tora Bora region of Afghanistan. He said he could find her, and three days later he and a friend brought her back to the camp. There, the remarkable story of this woman, Sharbat Gula, began to be told. ]]> /galleries/bcove/assets/43b413b2-0d26-4a63-baa0-37033c254a3d.jpg /galleries/bcove/assets/43543391-8aa4-4106-ac1c-f82585c330c3.jpg Geographic this year, she had no idea that her image had been seen by millions. People have told McCurry that her face alone inspired them to aid refugees.]]> /galleries/bcove/assets/b2ec2b61-6559-4f9a-bb2b-235e6eb2b50d.jpg /galleries/bcove/assets/78b21dc9-f027-48ca-9dbd-9957953c2b68.jpg Geographic team, the only happy day of her life. She became an orphan and refugee of war at about age six. Soviet bombing killed her parents, and her grandmother led her and her brother and sisters on foot, in winter, to Pakistan, where they lived in various camps. Here Sharbat holds Zahida, age 3, and her husband holds one-year-old Alia. Their oldest, Robina, is 13. A fourth daughter died in infancy. Sharbat says she hopes that her girls will get the education she was never able to complete.]]> /galleries/bcove/assets/60a0487a-f2c2-4271-85e7-eba91738dfff.jpg /galleries/bcove/assets/d6446916-f4a0-44f0-8dde-16c23d3b6874.jpg /galleries/bcove/assets/d491142d-5241-47b6-8baf-f72e1d2462ac.jpg /galleries/bcove/assets/7e860470-f860-4d5f-a1a5-d8110b382a8b.jpg Geographic sought expert opinion. In Pakistan, ophthalmologist Mustafa Iqbal examined Sharbat, with her husband at her side. Iqbal felt “100 percent certain” that her iris patterns and eye freckles matched those in McCurry’s photo. A scar on the right side of her nose was another distinguishing mark.]]> /galleries/bcove/assets/4ef710ef-a183-409e-8852-ddb2d7eca075.jpg /galleries/bcove/assets/40066b7e-5c62-43d9-a4a0-3bffb6353c52.jpg Geographic cover photo—and taking into consideration factors such as ethnicity, diet, and way of life—forensic sculptor Frank Bender of Philadelphia projects what the schoolgirl would look like today. National Geographic Television & Film commissioned this work from Bender after its crew returned from Pakistan, as a means to help verify that it had indeed found the “Afghan girl.”]]> /galleries/bcove/assets/3b07407e-fc3a-4090-811c-6ddd15f66dae.jpg /galleries/bcove/assets/0644aa6c-6344-4ca9-a3dc-d64540ba897e.jpg /galleries/bcove/assets/4aeba107-6f77-4502-b9f2-5d6dd661c16e.jpg /galleries/bcove/assets/f88f6272-380f-4897-887e-87a7f8e0ca15.jpg Geographic turned to the inventor of automatic iris recognition, John Daugman, a professor of computer science at England’s University of Cambridge. His biometric technique uses mathematical calculations, and the numbers Daugman got left no question in his mind that the haunted eyes of the young Afghan refugee and the eyes of the adult Sharbat Gula belong to the same person.]]>