The Baby Handed To US Forces During Kabul Chaos Is Missing, Family Says

The baby seen handed to U.S. forces in a viral video during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan is currently missing, the child’s family told Reuters.

A viral video taken during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan shows a man handing a baby off to U.S. soldiers outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. The soldiers appear to take the baby from the man and lift the child over the wall and into the airport.

The child’s parents, Mirza Ali Ahmadi and his wife Suraya, say they have not seen their son, named Sohail, since the video was taken, Reuters reported. Mirza Ali, who worked as a security guard for the U.S. embassy in Kabul, told the outlet he was separated from his child moments after the video was taken due to Taliban soldiers pushing the crowd away from the airport fence.

Once inside the airport, Mirza Ali told Reuters he could not find his son, and that he searched the airport with a U.S. official to no avail.

“I spoke to maybe more than 20 people,” Mirza Ali told the outlet. “Every officer – military or civilian – I came across I was asking about my baby.”

When reached for comment, a State Department spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the U.S. government is aware of the situation and is exploring all possible ways to find the child, including through international amber alerts issued by the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

“Unfortunately no one can find the child,” a U.S. official familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The Ahmadi family is now living in Fort Bliss, Texas, and waiting to be resettled in the U.S., according to Reuters.