A newborn baby girl dumped on the side of a road in Afghanistan and rescued by Polish troops — who initially thought the little bundle was a bomb — has begun a new life as a treasured member of a childless family.
The baby, named Pola by the Polish troops when she was found during a patrol on Sept. 19, was first taken to the soldiers’ base in Ghazni province south of Kabul and then transferred to the local hospital.
“The soldiers noticed a small thing wrapped in a towel on the side of the road. At first they thought it was an IED (improvised explosive device), but when they got closer they found out it was a baby,” hospital director Baz Mohammad Rahmat told AFP.
“They picked up the baby and took her to their base and called us. We told them to bring her to the hospital. The baby was two days old and was in good health.”
Before going to the hospital, Pola was given a medical check and food by the Polish soldiers, part of NATO forces fighting a Taleban insurgency.
“I was called to the (Tactical Operations Center) for an urgent task: buy milk, a bottle and a teat,” said Polish Master Corporal Miroslaw Myszka, according to a report on the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) website.
“At first I thought that they were joking, but they told me briefly a history of the child so I conducted this task as quickly as I could. It is my fourth tour but I have not had such a task yet.”
How the baby came to be on the side of the road is not known, but one theory is that she was born to an unmarried mother who could not face the punishment the birth would provoke.
Another theory is that she could have been dumped simply because she was a girl in a country where boys are more highly valued.
But whatever her past, her future is bright, according to her adoptive father, 29-year-old Ghazni shopkeeper Zahir Rahimi.
“I have been married for four years, but I don’t have a child yet,” he told AFP in the one room he and his wife rent in a mud house on the outskirts of Ghazni city.
“My wife and I have visited several doctors for treatment, but nothing seems to work.”
Rahimi said he had decided to take a second wife — permitted under Afghan law — in an attempt to have a child, before a fortuitous visit to Ghazni hospital.
“That day, I had taken my cousin to the hospital, and there I found out about the baby. I immediately contacted the doctor and told him I didn’t have kids and wanted that baby very badly,” he said.
“The doctors agreed and gave her to me. I’m very glad now, we have a baby and I don’t have to get married again.
“We have named her Aria (Happiness). She has brought a lot of happiness to us. I want my baby to grow up, go to school and have a very good future.”
According to the US State Department, out of the eight million students enrolled in Afghan schools, nearly 40 percent are girls.
Afghan ‘bomb’ baby finds new home
Afghan ‘bomb’ baby finds new home
Art Cairo spotlights pioneering artist Inji Efflatoun
CAIRO: Art Cairo 2026 returned to Egypt’s bustling capital from Jan. 23-26, with visitors treated to gallery offerings from across the Middle East as well as a solo museum exhibition dedicated to pioneering Egyptian artist Inji Efflatoun.
While gallery booths hailed from across the Arab world, guests also had the chance to explore the oeuvre of the politically charged artist, who died in 1989.
Many of the pieces in the 14-work exhibition were drawn from the collection of the Egyptian Museum of Modern Art and cover four main periods of the artist’s work, including her Harvest, Motherhood, Prison and Knoll series.
Efflatoun was a pivotal figure in modern Egyptian art and is as well known for her work as her Marxist and feminist activism.
“This is the third year there is this collaboration between Art Cairo and the Ministry of Culture,” Noor Al-Askar, director of Art Cairo, told Arab News.
“This year we said Inji because (she) has a lot of work.”
Born in 1924 to an affluent, Ottoman-descended family in Cairo, Efflatoun rebelled against her background and took part heavily in communist organizations, with her artwork reflecting her abhorrence of social inequalities and her anti-colonial sentiments.
One untitled work on show is a barbed statement on social inequalities and motherhood, featuring a shrouded mother crouched low on the ground, working as she hugs and seemingly protects two infants between her legs.
The artist was a member of the influential Art et Liberte movement, a group of staunchly anti-imperialist artists and thinkers.
In 1959, Efflatoun was imprisoned under Gamal Abdel Nasser, the second president of Egypt. The artist served her sentence for four years across a number of women’s prisons in the deserts near Cairo — it was a period that heavily impacted her art, leading to her post-release “White Light” period, marked dynamic compositions and vibrant tones.
Grouped together, four of the exhibited works take inspiration from her time in prison, with powerful images of women stacked above each other in cell bunkbeds, with feminine bare legs at sharp odds with their surroundings.
The bars of the prison cells obstruct the onlooker’s view, with harsh vertical bars juxtaposed against the monochrome stripes of the prison garb in some of her works on show.
“Modern art, Egyptian modern art, most people, they really don’t know it very well,” Al-Askar said, adding that there has been a recent uptick in interest across the Middle East, in the wake of a book on the artist by UAE art patron Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi.
“So, without any reason, all the lights are now on Inji,” Al-Askar added.
Although it was not all-encompassing, Art Cairo’s spotlight on Efflatoun served as a powerful starting point for guests wishing to explore her artistic journey.
