THE CRYING baby that was seen being handed over a barbed wire wall to a US soldier at Kabul airport has been reunited with his father.
Mums and kids were crushed and trampled in the rush to flee the Taliban yesterday — with US troops pictured clambering over razor wire to lift one screaming infant to safety.
It has now been reported that the child has been reunited with her parents, who had braved stampedes and gunshots to try to get her out of war-torn Afghanistan.
Marine Corps officials have revealed that the baby had been picked up by a member of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
Major Jim Stenger told CBS News: ‘The baby seen in the video was taken to a medical treatment facility on site and cared for by medical professionals.
“I can confirm the baby was reunited with their father and is safe at the airport.”
He added: ‘This is a true example of the professionalism of the Marines on site, who are making quick decisions in a dynamic situation in support of evacuation operations.”
MEDICAL TREATMENT
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby cleared up the situation on Friday – saying the child had not been handed over to be put on a plane, but to recieve medical treatment.
He said: “The parent asked the Marines to look after the baby because the baby was ill.
“The Marine you see reaching over the wall, took it to a Norwegian hospital at the airport.
“They treated the child and returned the child to the father.”
He added: ‘The baby was returned to its father. I don’t know where they are now.
“Obviously we have a responsibility to return a child to the parent. I don’t know who the parent is, if they’re an SIV applicant.
“It was a humane act of compassion by the Marines.’
AIRPORT ‘GETTING SLIGHTLY BETTER’
Boris Johnson admitted last night, as the chaotic scenes played out, that he would even work with the Taliban if that would be a way forward to solving the crisis.
The PM said: “What I want to assure people is that our political and diplomatic efforts to find a solution for Afghanistan –— working with the Taliban, of course, if necessary — will go on. Our commitment to Afghanistan is lasting.”
He claimed the situation at the airport is “getting slightly better” and the UK managed to evacuate around 1,000 people yesterday.
Commanders said that battle-hardened soldiers had been reduced to tears by the suffering they were witnessing and almost powerless to stop at the airport.
One German national was shot dead and a toddler was left unconscious as thousands of civilians were trapped between western troops and the Taliban.
Thousands of Afghans are camped outside the airport in a desperate bid to find a way on to a US or British mercy flight.
But the size of the crowd is blocking off access to the airport to thousands of Brits and their dependants stranded in Kabul.
SAS teams have been forced to sneak into the city — now firmly under Taliban control — to collect Brits, their staff and their families after reports that the militants ripped up passports and turned people away at checkpoints.
The RAF was scheduled to fly eight evacuation flights out of Kabul yesterday — but none was full because troops and teams of consular staff cannot get passengers fast enough.
Yet a record 963 people did make it out on the UK planes, meaning the RAF has evacuated 2,400 since Sunday, a quarter of whom were British nationals.
A source said: “The most significant constraint is the ability to get to the processing centre.”
Several Nato countries pressed for evacuations of foreign nationals to continue beyond the US withdrawal deadline of August 31.
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Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said: “The US has stated the timeline but our allies raised during the discussion today the need to potentially extend that to be able to get more people out.”
Cold-eyed killers from the Haqqani network — a ruthless sub-branch of the Taliban — have taken over parts of the capital Kabul.
Sources said they ignored the Taliban’s edicts to let people leave.
Around 900 Brits and 6,000 Americans are in Kabul to help evacuate foreign nationals, contractors and their dependants. The operations are now managing to pick up pace — as fears remain that US troops will pull the plug again, forcing the Brits to leave.
Overall, 18,000 have been evacuated in the largely US mission.
US and British troops have set up more concrete blast walls to try to instil crowd control. But witnesses say the airport remains a scene of chaos.
Mr Johnson made it clear the Taliban will be judged not on its PR stunts but “on its actions”.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab held a meeting with Nato allies to call for a unified approach “to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe-haven for terrorists”.
But Russia’s President Vladimir Putin stuck the knife in over the chaos. He said: “We know the country and became convinced it is counterproductive to try to enforce forms of government and social life that are alien to it.”
Councils across the UK who take in Afghan refugees will be given a slice of a new £5million pot of cash to provide decent housing for those fleeing persecution.
Source: The Sun
