Afghan baby passed over wall at Kabul airport reunited with family, says US Spokesperson

File photo

Kabul: A senior US official, John Kirby, at a press conference has revealed that the baby seen being passed over a wall at the Kabul airport has been reunited with the family.

A video recently went viral, showing an American serviceman reaching over a barbed wire-fitted wall to grab a baby with one hand and haul it into the protected compound.

According to reports, John Kirby, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, has now provided an update on what happened to the infant.

Addressing reporters, Kirby said: "The video you`re talking about, the parents asked the marines to look after the baby because the baby was ill, so the marine you see reaching over the wall took it to a Norwegian hospital that`s at the airport. They treated the child and returned the child to the father."

He said he was "only aware of the one incident" of US forces taking in Afghan babies and described it as "an act of compassion because there was concern about the baby".

Images of parents attempting to hand over their children to soldiers have become a defining picture of the chaotic end to the West`s involvement in Afghanistan.

The videos and images show hundreds of Afghans jamming the Kabul airport and trying to get out of the country after Taliban insurgents entered the capital.