An Afghan girl, orphaned by an attack during her evacuation from Kabul and aged just a few weeks, is reunited with her loved ones in Doha, Qatar.
The almost two-year-old girl, nicknamed Maryam by the orphanage but whose birth name is Aliza, was reunited with her uncle Yaar Mohammad Niazi and her brothers and sisters on Monday.
“I didn’t know if we were going to find them and I was overwhelmed,” says Mr. Niazi, 40, himself a father of four.
“When I hugged her, I said to myself: She’s alive,” he says, adding that he wants to keep the first name Maryam because the little one has gotten used to it.
The man had been looking for his niece since late August 2021, when she was evacuated from Kabul by plane that was just taken over by the Taliban.
His parents, who fled to the airport with their four children, were killed on August 26, a bloody day marked by an attack by the jihadist group Islamic State and fighting that left a total of 183 dead.
Maryam was only a month or two at the time. A teenager took her in his arms and then took her aboard an American military plane that was taking expatriates and Afghans to Doha, a Qatari official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Photo KARIM JAAFAR / AFP
Maryam, with her sisters and uncle.
In total, around 200 Afghan children were evacuated by plane without their parents or relatives – flights that have enabled tens of thousands of Afghans to flee their country.
They were being looked after by the Qatari authorities, according to the official. “We worked with Unicef (the United Nations Children’s Fund, ed.) to see if they still had family members,” he adds.
For its part, the UN agency has been beset by inquiries from families searching for their missing relatives.
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DNA testing
While little Maryam was taking her first steps at Dreama Orphanage in Doha, her brother and two sisters lost hope of ever leaving Kabul, as did their uncle, who had regained custody.
But six weeks after the August 26 attack, the UN believes it has found Maryam’s trail.
“They contacted us to conduct DNA tests on the little girl,” the Qatari official says.
Then Mr. Niazi did one in Kabul too. The results are consistent. The uncle then had to wait many months to get a passport from the new Afghan authorities to bring his whole family to Qatar.
Since then, Mr. Niazi, stationed in Doha, hopes to obtain a visa to live in the United States. “We just want to be sure,” he explains.
He and his wife now have eight dependent children: Maryam, the siblings’ three other children, and their four little ones.
Maryam continues to live in Dreama and will gradually spend more time with her newly reunited family, gently adjusting to them.
Other young Afghans who were taken in by Dreama have also been reunited with their families. Among them, a three-year-old boy joined his father in Canada after being recognized by a Canadian diplomat on a wanted poster.
After the Taliban captured Kabul, Qatar had temporarily housed thousands of Afghans in Doha, waiting for countries to offer them permanent sanctuary.
Only 15 Afghans have yet to leave Doha, the Qatari official said. Hundreds of other Afghans live at a US military base in Qatar, some of whom have only recently arrived.