Baby Lost During Taliban Takeover in Kabul Airport Reunites with Parents

During the Taliban takeover on August 19 Baby Sohail Ahmadi’s parents handed him to a US soldier across the fence fearing that he would be crushed in the crowds of people who were trying to flee the country. The situation was pretty chaotic.

After handing the baby over, it took Ahmadi’s family over half an hour to reach the other side of the fence. When they finally did, the baby was nowhere to be found. 

Sohail Ahmadi’s father worked as a security guard in the American Embassy and his mother’s name is Suraya. The parents searched for Sohail for many days however they couldn’t trace him.

Both of them, including their four children, were put on an evacuation flight to Qatar and eventually they reached America without Sohail. 

In the midst of these events, the missing two month old child had been found by a  29 year old taxi driver Hamid Safi in Kabul. Apparently the baby was seen crying on the ground of the airport. He decided to take him to his family.  

In November he said he decided: “I am keeping this baby. If his family is found, I will give him to them. If not, I will raise him myself.” Hamid didn’t have a son and hence he was more than happy to raise the child as his own. 

In the same month a story was published on the missing boy. In a twist of events, Hamid Safi’s neighbours saw the article and posted comments about the child’s whereabouts. 

It was not long before Sohail Ahmadi’s grandparents who were in Kabul intervened and connected with the taxi driver. 

Hamid had no intention of giving the child back. It took seven weeks of negotiation and intervention of Taliban Police to coerce Hamid to give the child back to his relatives in Kabul. 

Sohail’s relatives reported a kidnapping case against Hamid although he denied the charges of kidnapping. The local police finally reached a settlement wherein Sohail’s grandfather Mohammad Qasem Razawi had to pay about 100,000 Afghani (£700) to Hamid for the cost of looking after the child for five months.

Razawi said that Hamid Safi and his wife were devastated to give back Sohail. 

“Hamid and his wife were crying,” he said. “I cried too, but assured them that you both are young, Allah will give you male child. Not one, but several.

“I thanked both of them for saving the child from the airport.”

 Now, the relatives are trying to reunite the baby with his parents and siblings in the USA.