Infant lost during Afghanistan mass evacuation reunites with family

An Afghan baby boy who was lost during the chaos at Kabul airport when the mass evacuation from Afghanistan was taking place has been reunited with his grandfather after five months. 

Two-month-old Sohail Ahmadi's parents were among the ones being crushed against the perimeter fence at Kabul Airport where thousands sought places on planes to escape from the Taliban.

When the parents faced a deep desperation, Sohail was handed over to someone who they thought was an American soldier. 

When Sohail’s father, Mirza Ali Ahmadi and his mother Suraya finally made it through a nearby gate, which was only 15 feet away, the baby was lost.

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A 29-year-old taxi driver named Hamid Safi had found him in the airport and took him home to raise as his own. 

Negotiations and pleas

After more than seven weeks of negotiations and pleas, and ultimately a brief detention by Taliban police, Safi finally handed the child back to his jubilant grandfather and other relatives still in Kabul. 

They said they would now seek to have him reunited with his parents and siblings who were evacuated months ago to the United States.     

During the tumultuous Afghan evacuation over the summer, Mirza Ali Ahmadi who had worked as a security guard at the US embassy – and his wife Suraya feared their son would get crushed in the crowd as they neared the airport gates en route to a flight to the United States.

Ahmadi told Reuters news agency in early November in his desperation that day, he handed Sohail over the airport wall to a uniformed soldier who he believed to be an American, fully expecting he would soon walk the remaining 5 meters (15 feet) to the entrance to reclaim him.

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Just at that moment, Taliban forces pushed the crowd back and it would be another half an hour before Ahmadi, his wife and their four other children were able to get inside. 

But by then the baby was nowhere to be found. 

Ahmadi said he searched desperately 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 was evacuated – eventually ending up at a military base in Texas. For months they had no idea where their son was. 

Hasty evacuation

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 organisations overstretched, Afghan refugees have had trouble getting answers on the timing, or possibility, of complex reunifications like this one.

"We are working to reunify the family," a State Department official said.

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Sohail's grandfather, Mohammad Qasem Razawi, 67, who lives in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, travelled to Kabul with gifts including a slaughtered sheep, a large quantity of walnuts and clothes for Safi’s family, who were initially reluctant to hand him over.

Local officials negotiated a settlement for expenses, and the baby was returned to his relatives.