Sharbat Gula is an Afghan woman of Pashtun ethnicity. She was forced to leave her home in Afghanistan during the Soviet war for a refugee camp in Pakistan where she was photographed by journalist Steve McCurry. The image made her famous when it was featured on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic Magazine, at a time when she was approximately 13 years old. Gula was known throughout the world simply as the Afghan Girl until she was formally identified in early 2002.