ROME: Sharbat Gula, the green-eyed Afghan woman immortalised decades ago on a National Geographic cover, has been evacuated to Italy, the Italian government said on Thursday. “Afghan citizen Sharbat Gula has arrived in Rome,” it said in a statement, without giving a specific date.

Gula became arguably Afghanistan’s most famous refugee after US photographer Steve McCurry captured her portrait in a Pakistan camp in the 1980s.