Pakistan: Famed "Afghan Girl" hospitalized after falling ill in custody

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan’s foreign ministry says an Afghan woman who gained fame in 1984 after a photograph of her as a refugee girl was published on the cover of National Geographic has been hospitalized after falling ill while in custody.

Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria said Thursday that Sharbat Gulla is being treated at a hospital in Peshawar.

He didn’t provide details but authorities say the famed green-eyed “Afghan Girl” was arrested for holding a fake Pakistani identity card.

She has denied the charges but a Pakistani court on Wednesday dismissed a bail plea for Gulla.

War photographer Steve McCurry, whose photograph made Gulla famous, found her again in Afghanistan in 2002. She surfaced again in 2014 in Pakistan but went into hiding after authorities accused her of buying a fake ID card.

“Sharbat Gula was ready to repatriate to her father’s village in Kot district (Afghanistan) in early summer this year,” a close relative of Gula told CBS News. “But the residents of her native village left … due to Daesh (ISIS),” the relative continued.

“Her Pakistan ID was already blocked one year back … She thought the case had been closed. She is a simple, illiterate lady,” he said.

For decades, Pakistan provided safe haven to Afghans who fled their country following the 1979 Soviet invasion. The UNHCR said Pakistan was host to 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees, and the agency estimated that there were an additional 1 million unregistered refugees residing there.