[imagesource:here]

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

In August last year, thousands of people rushed to leave Afghanistan as the country fell under the control of the Taliban.

Video footage of people clinging to a US military plane as it left the runway at Kabul’s airport, with some reported to have fallen to their deaths, will live long in the memory.

Another clip that has become synonymous with the chaos involved a baby being passed over the wall at the airport.

You can see that take place in the first seven seconds:

That baby boy is called Sohail Ahmadi and he has finally been reunited with his family, reports Reuters:

Following an exclusive Reuters story published in November with his pictures, the baby was located in Kabul where a 29-year-old taxi driver named Hamid Safi [with Sohail below] had found him in the airport and took him home to raise as his own.

Image: Reuters /Ali Khara

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.

Reuniting Sohail with his parents will take time as his parents and siblings were evacuated months ago to the United States.

Mirza Ali Ahmadi, Sohail’s father, explained why he had become separated from his child:

Ahmadi 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.

..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 make it the remaining 5 meters (15 feet) to the entrance to reclaim him.

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.

When they did make it inside, their baby had vanished.

After a desperate search, the family was told it was likely that Sohail had been transported separately and “could be reunited with them later”.

However, they then spent months at a military base in Texas with no idea where their son was.

The Ahmadi family have since moved to an apartment in Michigan. Those who remained in Afghanistan now have Sohail in their care and are planning to reunite him with his parents in due course.

[source:reuters]