The infant from Kabul is reunited with the family – NRK Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
Thursday 19 August 2021: In the chaos at Kabul International Airport, among hundreds of people trying to get out of Afghanistan, Sohail Ahmadi’s parents make the desperate decision.
They lift their youngest child up from the crowds and give it to the soldiers who secure the gates into the terminal area. They do not see him again.
It will be many months before anyone finds out where Sohail has gone. After days of searching inside the airport area without success, the family is evacuated to the United States. The US State Department is announcing the disappearance, and international organizations are being asked to assist in the search for the infant who disappeared without a trace.
But it is not they who will eventually account for the little boy. There is a 29-year-old taxi driver in Kabul.
Found alone on the ground
Back to Thursday 19 August 2021: Hamid Safi has driven his brother’s family to the airport in Kabul. Inside the gates, the 29-year-old taxi driver sees an infant, left to himself on the ground. According to Reuters Safi tries to find the child’s parents. Then he decides to take the child home.
Safi has a wife and three daughters. They also have room for a son.
– If anyone finds his family, I’ll give it to them. If not, I’ll raise him myself, Safi thinks.
And so it will be.
Two-month-old Sohail Ahmadi gets a new name and a new family. A family of five, has now become six.
In the United States, there is also another family, the Ahmadi family, which is missing its seventh member.
The story of Sohail Ahmadi has been told by several international media, including New York Post, BBC and the news agency Reuters. NRK’s ​​descriptions of the course of events are based on these interviews.
Neighbors recognized Sohail
November 2021: It has been weeks and months since Sohail disappeared. I am writing in November Reuters and article about the family looking for the youngest man after he disappeared during the evacuation from Kabul. The article is widely viewed, and images of Sohail are shown around the world.
Hamid Safi’s neighbors also get the story of the disappearance at the airport. Could the new neighbor child be Sohail Ahmadi? Under pictures circulating of the missing child, they express that they know where he is.
The comments reach the Ahmadi family in the United States. The relatives who are still in Afghanistan with the news that the child may have been found. It is agreed that Sohail’s grandfather, who lives in the northeast of the country, will apply for Hamid Safi – and pick up the boy.
Negotiations and kidnapping
The trip to Kabul takes the grandfather for 24 hours. When he finally arrives, negotiations begin:
Safi will not give up the infant. He demands that he and his family be evacuated from Afghanistan.
The Ahmadi family must seek help elsewhere. They start with the Red Cross, but to no avail. Therefore, the grandfather eventually contacts the Taliban to report Safi for kidnapping.
Hamid Safi denies that there is talk of a kidnapping. According to Reuters, the investigation is still under investigation, and at some point Safi is arrested. The negotiations are ongoing for seven weeks before the local police manage to land an agreement between the parties.
The agreement states that Sohail’s family must pay Safi around 100,000 Afghans, ie around 8400 kroner, for expenses as Sohail has been in his care.
Then the child can be reunited with his relatives.
Reunited with grandfather
Saturday, January 8, 2022: It has been almost five months since the Ahmadi family last saw the youngest. Still-learning over 10,000 miles apart. They eagerly follow the video when Sohail is reunited with her relatives in her home country.
It is grandfather who receives him.
A moment of joy for the Ahmadi family, relieved that the youngest member of the flock – who has lived most of his life separate from his own – is reunited with relatives. Maybe he’s on his way to the United States soon. That is at least the goal.
For the Safi family, on the other hand, it is full of grief. They are devastated to have lost the child they had begun to regard as their own.