アフガンから独りで退避の赤ちゃん、家族らと再会　カタール

【ドーハＡＦＰ＝時事】アフガニスタンの首都カブールで２０２１年、空港付近で起こった爆弾攻撃により両親が亡くなり、国外に退避する飛行機に独りで乗せられた幼児が、カタールの孤児院で家族らと再会した。（写真はアフガニスタンのマリアムちゃん。カタール・ドーハの孤児施設で）
　当時アフガンから保護者の同伴なしに避難した子ども約２００人のうち、この女児は生後数週間で最年少だった。
　カタールには、おじのヤール・モハマド・ニアジさんと、兄、２人の姉が来た。孤児院でマリアムと名付けられた女児は現在１歳９か月で、出生時の名前はアリーザだった。
　ニアジさんは「もう見つけられないかもと思っていた。感激している」と語った。
　イスラム主義組織タリバンがカブールを制圧した２０２１年８月、国外へ脱出しようと大勢が空港に殺到し、混乱状態となった。
　マリアムちゃんの両親は子ども４人を連れて、同月２６日にアフガンからの脱出を試みた。しかし、両親は空港付近で起きた連続爆弾攻撃と銃撃に巻き込まれて亡くなった。この攻撃では１８３人が死亡した。イスラム過激派組織「イスラム国」が犯行声明を出している。
　カタール当局者によると、１０代の少年がマリアムちゃんをドーハ行きの米軍機に乗せた。
　孤児院と国連児童基金（ユニセフ）の協力により、マリアムちゃんの家族探しが進められた。その過程で、カタール当局にユニセフからＤＮＡ鑑定の依頼があったという。
　ＤＮＡ鑑定結果の確認に時間がかかった上、ニアジさんらがタリバン当局からパスポートを取得するのにも数か月を要した。
　ニアジさんは自分の家族とマリアムちゃんらと共に、米国に移住する申請をしたいと思っている。また、マリアムちゃんが自分のことをマリアムと言う名で認識しているため、これからもこの名前を使い続けるという。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/03/29-16:42）

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.
Amid the carnage, a teenage boy grabbed her and carried her onto a US military flight taking Afghans and stranded expatriates to Doha, a Qatari official said.
She found a new home in Qatar's Dreama orphanage, while her elder brother and two sisters stayed back in Afghanistan.
Maryam was the youngest of about 200 Afghan children to be evacuated alone on the flights that carried tens of thousands out of Afghanistan.
We took them in and gave them specialised care, said the Qatari official, speaking on condition of not being identified.
We worked with UNICEF to see if there were any family members.
The UN children's agency was quickly besieged with frantic requests from families back in Afghanistan looking for missing relatives.
- DNA tests -
Niazi and the other three orphaned children were back in Afghanistan, where the Taliban installed a government for what they named the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Six weeks after the massive Kabul bomb blast, UN sleuths thought they had the baby's identity.
They contacted us to carry out DNA tests, the Qatari official said.
Transporting the genetic test results between Doha and Kabul to seek a match took more time, as Niazi waited for months to get a passport from the new Taliban authorities so he could get his family to Qatar.
Now arrived in the Gulf state, Niazi said he would start the process of moving to the United States, together with his wife and the total of eight children now in their care.
We just want to be somewhere safe, he told AFP.
Social workers will give him and the siblings gradually increased access to Maryam, so they can slowly get to know each other.
Niazi said the little girl will keep her new name because it is the one she answers to.
Other children at the Qatar orphanage have also been reunited with family members.
A three-year-old boy there has joined his father in Canada after a Qatari diplomat recognised him from a missing-child photo.
Most of the other children were aged at least eight, and many have now either joined relatives or been adopted by families in the United States, Canada or Europe.
At one stage thousands of Afghans were in temporary shelters in Doha waiting for countries to take them. Now there are only about 15 left, the Qatari official said.
Hundreds more Afghans are still at a US military base in Qatar, many of them more recent arrivals, still awaiting the chance to find new homes abroad.