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Baby boy lost in chaos at Kabul airport during US evacuation finally returned to family

Baby boy lost in chaos at Kabul airport during US evacuation finally returned to family.

A baby boy separated from his parents in the chaos at Kabul airport in August when the US evacuation of Afghanistan was taking place has finally been reunited with his family.

Two-month-old Sohail Ahmadi was handed to an American soldier over a fence at the airport, to save him from being crushed in the desperate rush to get into Kabul airport as people were fleeing after the Taliban took over Afghanistan.

However, once his family entered the airport, Sohail was nowhere to be found.

After a frantic but futile search for the infant, his father Mirza Ali Ahmadi, who had worked as a security guard at the US embassy and his family left on an evacuation flight to the US.

For months they had no idea where their little son was.

But after reading a Reuters report on the family's search for Sohail, in November he was traced to the home of a 29-year-old taxi driver named Hamid Safi.

Safi said he had found Sohail alone and crying on the ground at the airport, the news agency said. After trying to find the boy's family, he decided to take him home to his wife and children, and raise him as his own son.

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They posted photos of the boy with all the children together on Safi's Facebook page.

When Sohail's whereabouts were confirmed, the baby's grandfather, Mohammad Qasem Razawi, who lives in the distant Badakhshan province , went to Kabul to ask for the child to be returned.

However, Safi refused to part with the baby and demanded he and his family also be evacuated to the US, according to Reuters.

After seven weeks of negotiations, the Taliban police arranged a settlement between the two families and the baby was returned to his grandfather on Saturday, Reuters reported.

His parents said they were overjoyed after watching the reunion via video chat.

They hope arrangements will soon be made for Sohail to be brought to them in the USA, where they have now settled.