An Afghan child who went missing after his desperate parents handed him over to an American soldier on an airport wall has finally been found again after five months, Reuters reported on Saturday.

According to a Reuters report, the child’s parents are very happy after the desperate search for their son.

Little Sohail Ahmadi was just two months old when he was handed to a soldier during the chaos of the US military withdrawing from Afghanistan on August 19 in Hamid Karzai International Airport.

The parent; Mirza Ali Ahmadi (a US Embassy employee) and his wife Suraya, handed over the baby to an American soldier hoping to collect him soon when they made it through the crowd to the airport. Many Afghans were seen during that time doing this to rescue their children from the dangerous crowds scrambling to get out of the country.

But Taliban security forces held back amidst crushing Ahmadis. When they finally got to the airport, their son was nowhere to be found.

According to Reuters, while his parents and other relatives were desperately looking for Sohail, the baby was located in Kabul, where a 29-year-old taxi driver named Hamid Safi had found him at the airport and took him home to raise as his own.

Cab driver Hamid Safi said he found the child alone and crying on the airport floor after leaving his brother there.

The driver’s friends who had noticed his return from the airport months earlier with a baby reportedly contacted Sohail’s relatives after they saw the baby’s pictures posted on Facebook in November by Safi’s family.

Ahmadi asked his relatives still in Afghanistan, including his father-in-law Mohammad Qasem Razawi, 67, who lives in the north-eastern province of Badakhshan, to seek out Safi and ask him to return Sohail to the family.

Razawi said that he travelled two days and two nights to the capital bearing gifts – including a slaughtered sheep, several pounds of walnuts and clothing – for Safi and his family.

But Safi refused to release Sohail, insisting that he also wanted to be evacuated from Afghanistan with his family. Safi’s brother, who was evacuated to California, said that Safi and his family have no pending applications for US entry.

The baby’s family sought help from the Red Cross, which has a stated mission to help reconnect people separated by international crises, but said that they received little information from the organisation. A spokesperson for the Red Cross said that it does not comment on individual cases.

Finally, after feeling they had run out of options, Razawi contacted the local Taliban police to report a kidnapping. Safi told Reuters he denied the allegations to the police, and said that he was caring for the baby, not kidnapping him.

The complaint was investigated and dismissed, and the local police commander told Reuters that he helped to arrange a settlement, which included an agreement signed with thumbprints by both sides. Razawi said that the baby’s family in the end agreed to compensate Safi around 100,000 afghani (US$950) for expenses incurred looking after him for five months.

After more than seven weeks of talks and brief detention by the Taliban, Safi finally handed over the baby to Sohail’s happy grandfather and other relatives, who are still in Kabul, Reuters reported.

Now the plan is to introduce the child to his parents and four siblings, who are now living in Michigan. Ahmadis were overjoyed that their child was now with relatives in Kabul.

Sohail’s grandfather told Reuters: “Now we need to bring the child back to his mother and father. That is my sole responsibility,” his grandfather said. “My wish is that he should return to them.”

What a happy reunion it will be!