Sohail, who disappeared in Kabul, and the other Afghan children: is there salvation for them?

It is through symbolic images that the tragedy of Afghanistan has been told for months. In August the world saw children, even newborns, given by parents to military and foreign personnel beyond the wall of the Kabul airport, left in the hands of strangers to give them a better life, a hope of survival in the face of the Taliban threat. Many parents have done it, all have feared not to see their children again, but they have chosen for them the path of a possible salvation, a future even without them.

Sohail was also raised by his father over the wall. He was just two months old last August. An American soldier took it. From that moment, it was August 19, nothing more is known about him. His parents, Mirza Ali Ahmadi and Suraya, were in the crowd and didn’t hesitate to leave him fearing he would get crushed. They did not know if they would all be able to save themselves. Instead they made it. Only their youngest son is missing. They entered the airport half an hour after him and never saw him again.

The family told exclusively to the Reuters what happened and spread the photo of the child in the hope of being able to find him. Parents and four other children are safe. They arrived in Qatar, passed through Germany and finally into the United States. I am in Fort Bliss in Texas with other Afghan refugees.

The first searches were made at the airport, that same day and in the following days, with the help of the military. Mirza Ali, the father, worked for 10 years as a security guard at the American Embassy. Someone told him that the child he could have already left because he could not keep minors alone in the airport.

Mirza Ali said she saw other people leave their children at the Kabul airport wall. A support group for Afghan refugees has made public Sohail’s photo hoping that someone will recognize him, that social media and media can go where American agencies dealing with the management of Afghan refugees have failed. A State Department spokesperson said the government is working with the international community to search every possible place, including outside the United States.

The child could still be in Afghanistan, it could be in another place in the US than the family, it could be in another country in the world. The hypotheses are many. His case has reached the news, but it is possible that among the many children left to the military at the airport there are some who have no longer had contacts with the family who remained in Afghanistan or over in other countries.

There are still ways out of the country. 1200 Afghans, who have collaborated with diplomatic, military and humanitarian organizations, will arrive in Italy. They are the ones who had the clearance already in August and who can do family reunification, but who remained trapped after the Taliban came to power. They will come through a humanitarian corridor. “It is not a decisive measure, considering that the estimated need concerns 3.5 million people, but this humanitarian action has a strong symbolic value and we hope it will be replicated in other European countries”, explained Oliviero Forti of Caritas Italy.

The way is easier for those already in Pakistan or Iran, not for those still in Afghanistan, even if they have the documents to leave the country. L’Unhcr, The UN Refugee Agency, has repeatedly asked states to speed up reunification procedures. The principle of family unity is protected by international law. Chiara Cardoletti, representative ofUnhcr for Italy, the Holy See and San Marino, explained to theActed that “this initiative alone cannot meet all needs and for this reason we will have to continue to work in complementarity on other tools such as resettlement, family reunification and support for the people who will remain in Afghanistan, more important than ever in view of the arrival of winter ».

There are 680,000 newly internally displaced people in Afghanistan. Outside the country, in Iran and Pakistan, there are three quarters of all Afghan refugees: 48,180 people have arrived in neighboring countries since January 1, 2021. UNHCR has reached over half a million internally displaced people with humanitarian assistance so far in 2021.

Other stories of Vanity Fair that may interest you:

– So I ran away from Afghanistan

– Afghanistan, Emergency: “Let’s not stop talking about it”