Sohail Ahmadi, the several-month-old baby that his parents rushed to US soldiers during the Kabul evacuation, has been returned to his grandparents.
Hamid Safi, in tears, returned little Sohail. On Saturday, the 29-year-old taxi driver met Mohammad Qasem Razawi and returned to him, after weeks of negotiations, the little boy he was raising with his wife Fatima as theirs, Reuters reported. Sohail had been missing since August 19, the day his parents Suraya and Mirza Ali Ahmadi, who sought to flee Kabul after the Taliban returned to power, handed him over to American soldiers to prevent him from being run over by the crowd trying to board a plane leaving the Afghan capital. In the meantime, the Ahmadi family was finally able to be evacuated – Mirza Ali Ahmadi worked as a security guard at the American embassy – joining the United States after passing through Kuwait and Germany, but without the youngest of their children.
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They were unaware of it but the little boy, then two months old, was well: he had been adopted by Hamid Safi and his wife, parents of three daughters. The young father had taken Sohail to the doctor, after finding him alone and on the ground, in the Kabul airport where he himself had just dropped off his brother and his family, evacuated and settled in California. In November, the taxi driver, father of three daughters, was determined: “I’m keeping this baby. If his family is found, I will give them back. Otherwise, I will raise it myself. ” In the meantime, neighbors had recognized Sohail in his adopted family’s numerous Facebook posts, thanks to images published in the press, and Mirza Ali Ahmadi had asked his wife’s parents, who have traveled for two days and two nights since. Badakhshan, a province in northern Afghanistan, to recover it. But then Hamid Safi refused, asking to be evacuated from Afghanistan with his family as well.
“Hamid and his wife were crying, I cried too”
It was only under pressure from the Taliban, warned by Mohammad Qasem Razawi, that Hamid Safi, visibly upset, returned the boy to his family. He received 100,000 afghanis (nearly 850 euros) from Sohail’s grandparents, to reimburse him for the child’s care and food. “Hamid and his wife were crying, I cried too, but I reassured them by telling them that they were both young, that Allah would give them a son. Not one, but several. I thanked them both for saving the little one at the airport. Now we have to return the baby to its mother and father. It is my sole responsibility, ”Mohammad Qasem Razawi told the news agency.
Suraya and Mirza Ali Ahmadi, who now live in Michigan, eagerly await their son’s arrival: “I was so sad, I was constantly crying for my baby. Now I hope it will arrive safely. Yesterday evening, I could not sleep because of happiness, ”said the young mother.
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