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Pakistan Deports Green-Eyed 'Afghan Girl'


Pakistani security officials escort Afghan refugee woman Sharbat Gula (center, in burqa), after a court hearing in Peshawar on November 4.
Pakistani security officials escort Afghan refugee woman Sharbat Gula (center, in burqa), after a court hearing in Peshawar on November 4.

Pakistan has deported an Afghan woman whose 1985 photograph on the cover of National Geographic magazine became a symbol of Afghanistan during war in the 1980s.

Sharbat Gula, known as the green-eyed "Afghan girl," was driven to the Torkham border crossing by Pakistani officials and handed over to Afghan authorities late on November 8.

She had been arrested in Peshawar for living in Pakistan along with her four children on false documents.

Purported video footage of Gula, broadcast by Pakistan's Geo-TV on the night of November 8, showed a woman wearing an Afghan-style burqa in a car with Pakistani diplomats heading for the border.

Afghan officials said earlier that Gula was to be flown by helicopter from Torkham to Kabul where Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has planned to host a function in her honor.

The 40-year-old Gula's four children were deported from Pakistan earlier.

Ghani's office has announced that a house has been arranged in Kabul for Gula and her children to live.

With reporting by Reuters, Geo-TV, and Dawn
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