A newborn boy delivered in despair to a soldier on the other side of an airport wall in the chaos of the US evacuation from Afghanistan was found and reunited with his relatives in Kabul on Saturday (8).
The baby, Sohail Ahmadi, was just two months old when he disappeared on Aug. 19, as thousands of people fled Afghanistan because of the Taliban.
Following an exclusive Reuters story published in November with photos, the baby was located in Kabul. He was found at the airport by a 29-year-old taxi driver named Hamid Safi. The driver took him home to raise as if he were his own son.
After more than seven weeks of negotiations and appeals, and finally a brief detention by Taliban police, Safi finally returned the child to his overjoyed grandfather and other relatives who were still in Kabul.
They said they would now seek to reunite him with his parents and siblings who were evacuated months ago to the United States.
The missing
During the tumultuous Afghan evacuation in the summer, Mirza Ali Ahmadi — the father of the boy who worked as a security guard at the US Embassy — and his wife Suraya feared their son would be crushed by the crowd as they approached the airport gates.
Ahmadi told Reuters in early November that, in his desperation that day, he handed Sohail over the airport wall to a uniformed soldier he believed to be an American, with the hope that he would soon cover the remaining five meters ( 15 feet) to the entrance of the retrieve it.
At that very moment, Taliban forces pushed the crowd back and it would be another half hour before Ahmadi, his wife and their four other children could enter. By this time, the baby was nowhere to be found.
Ahmadi said he desperately searched for his son inside the airport and was told by officials that he had likely been taken out of the country separately and could be reunited with them later.
The rest of the family that was evacuated ended up at a military base in Texas. For months they had no idea where their son was.
The case highlights the plight of many parents separated from their children during the hasty evacuation effort and withdrawal of US forces from the country after a 20-year war.
With no US embassy in Afghanistan and international organizations overwhelmed, Afghan refugees have a hard time getting answers about the timing, or the possibility, of complex reunions like this one.
The US Department of Defense, the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday.
alone at the airport
On the same day that Ahmadi and his family were separated from their baby, Safi escaped through the gates of Kabul airport after giving a lift to his brother’s family, who were also supposed to evacuate.
Safi said she found Sohail alone and crying on the floor. After saying he tried unsuccessfully to locate the baby’s parents inside, he decided to take the baby home to his wife and children. Safi has three daughters and said her mother’s biggest wish before she died was for him to have a son.
At that moment, he decided: “I’m going to keep this baby. If your family is found, I will give it to them. If not, I create it myself,” he told Reuters in an interview in late November.
Safi told Reuters he took him to the doctor for a checkup after he was found and quickly incorporated the child into his family. They named the baby Mohammad Abed and posted pictures of all the children together on their Facebook page.
After the Reuters story about the missing child broke, some of Safi’s neighbors – who had noticed her returning from the airport months earlier with a baby – recognized the photos and posted comments about her whereabouts in a translated version of the article.
Ahmadi asked his relatives who are still in Afghanistan, including his father-in-law Mohammad Qasem Razawi, 67, who lives in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, to reach out to Safi and ask him to return Sohail to the family.
Razawi said he traveled two days and nights to the capital bringing gifts – including a slaughtered sheep, several kilograms of nuts and clothes – for Safi and her family.
But Safi refused to release Sohail, insisting that he too wanted to be evacuated from Afghanistan with his family. Safi’s brother, who was evacuated to California, said Safi and her family have no pending applications to enter the United States.
The baby’s family sought help from the Red Cross, which has a stated mission to help reconnect people separated by international crises, but said they had received little information from the organization. A spokesperson for the Red Cross said it does not comment on individual cases.
Finally, after feeling there were no more options, Razawi contacted local Taliban police to report a kidnapping. Safi told Reuters he denied the allegations to police and said he was caring for the baby, not kidnapping him.
The complaint was investigated and dismissed, and the local police commander told Reuters he helped reach a settlement, which included a signed agreement with fingerprints on both sides. Razawi said the baby’s family eventually agreed to compensate Safi about 100,000 Afghans ($950) for the expenses incurred to care for him for five months.
“The baby’s grandfather complained to us and we found Hamid and based on the evidence we had we recognized the baby,” said Hamid Malang, the chief area controller at the local police station. “With both sides in agreement, the baby will be given to the grandfather,” he said on Saturday.
In the presence of the police, and amidst many tears, the baby was finally returned to its relatives.
Razawi said Safi and her family were devastated by the loss of Sohail.
“Hamid and his wife were crying, I cried too, but I assured them that you two are young, Allah will give you a son. Not one, but several. I thanked them both for saving the child from the airport,” Razawi said.
The baby’s parents told Reuters they were overjoyed to see their reunion through video chat with their own eyes.
“There are celebrations, dancing, singing,” Razawi said. “It’s just like a wedding, in fact.”
Now Ahmadi, his wife and other children, who in early December managed to leave the military base and settle in an apartment in Michigan, hope that Sohail will soon be flown to the United States.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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