Afghan orphaned toddler Maryam finally reunited with family

DOHA: An Afghan toddler who was bundled onto an evacuation flight from Kabul in 2021 after her parents died in a bomb blast has been reunited with relatives at a Qatar orphanage.

The little girl, now believed to be about 21 months old and given the name Maryam by the orphanage, saw her uncle Yaar Mohammad Niazi and her brother and two sisters again for the first time.

“I did not know if we would ever find her again, and now I am overcome” with emotion, said Niazi, aged about 40 and with four children of his own. “When I held her, I just told myself ´she is alive´.”

The tearful reunion ended a desperate search for Maryam since the chaotic days of August 2021 when the Taliban took control of the Afghan capital, sparking a panicked mass flight. Maryam´s parents were among those trying to flee with their four children when they were killed in a huge bomb blast and gun battle at Kabul airport that claimed 183 lives on August 26.

The little girl, whose birth name was Aliza, was only weeks old at the time her mother and father died in the attack that was claimed by the local chapter of the Islamic State group.