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Undertoad · 03-13-2002, 04:07 PM

More details! Here are select paragraphs from the wire story on it:

But the woman's identity has only just been uncovered after the National Geographic photographer who first saw her in a refugee camp in Pakistan 18 years ago, finally tracked down the woman in a remote village south of Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

"Every time I went there (to Afghanistan or Pakistan), I asked about her, but I never had any leads," freelance photographer Steve McCurry, who took the picture for National Geographic in 1984, told Reuters.

This January, he returned with a National Geographic team to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan where he took the picture and found someone who said he grew up with the woman's brother.

"The refugee camp was set to close and so I knew this was my only chance to find her," said McCurry. "I couldn't believe it when the brother finally turned up with his sister. I knew immediately it was her."

The woman, who is now about 30 years old, was identified as Sharbat Gula. She remembered McCurry taking the picture but had never seen a copy of it and was surprised and embarrassed by all the attention it attracted.

Gula got married shortly after McCurry first saw her and had four daughters, one of whom died in infancy. She was repatriated from the camp in 1992 and returned to Afghanistan with her family.

Her life had been tough in Afghanistan and McCurry said she had struggled to survive.

"What the second picture shows is that she is still alive and survived quite well in fact ... but that pain and hardship is still written in her face. It is not a face of joy," he added.

03-13-2002, 04:07 PM	#3
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	More details! Here are select paragraphs from the wire story on it: But the woman's identity has only just been uncovered after the National Geographic photographer who first saw her in a refugee camp in Pakistan 18 years ago, finally tracked down the woman in a remote village south of Jalalabad, Afghanistan. "Every time I went there (to Afghanistan or Pakistan), I asked about her, but I never had any leads," freelance photographer Steve McCurry, who took the picture for National Geographic in 1984, told Reuters. This January, he returned with a National Geographic team to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan where he took the picture and found someone who said he grew up with the woman's brother. "The refugee camp was set to close and so I knew this was my only chance to find her," said McCurry. "I couldn't believe it when the brother finally turned up with his sister. I knew immediately it was her." The woman, who is now about 30 years old, was identified as Sharbat Gula. She remembered McCurry taking the picture but had never seen a copy of it and was surprised and embarrassed by all the attention it attracted. Gula got married shortly after McCurry first saw her and had four daughters, one of whom died in infancy. She was repatriated from the camp in 1992 and returned to Afghanistan with her family. Her life had been tough in Afghanistan and McCurry said she had struggled to survive. "What the second picture shows is that she is still alive and survived quite well in fact ... but that pain and hardship is still written in her face. It is not a face of joy," he added.