Baby separated from family at Afghan airport last year reunited with grandfather

A baby who went missing amid the chaos in Afghanistan when the Taliban took over last year has finally been reunited with members of his family, according to an exclusive Reuters report.

Sohail Ahmadi was just two months old in August when the Taliban gained control of Afghanistan and his family tried to flee the country. Amid the desperation, his father handed the baby over an airport wall to a man he believed to be a US soldier, intending to climb immediately after him.

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But as the crowds pushed and shoved, Mirza Ali Ahmadi was separated from his son and the soldier. By the time he got inside the airport, he could not find the baby despite searching high and low.

Officials told him that the baby was likely to have been taken out of the country separately, and told them to continue their plans to flee, which they did. But even after landing in Texas, they could not learn anything of their baby’s whereabouts.

Reuters in November discovered that the baby was still in Kabul, after he was taken home by a taxi driver who decided to raise him as his own. Seven weeks of negotiations led to the baby finally being handed over to his grandfather this week.

Now, five months after he was parted from his parents and siblings, the Ahmadis are still desperate to have Sohail reunited with them in the United States, no easy feat with no clear solution in sight.