DHAKA, Aug 25: A Dutch lawyer who was trafficked to Europe as a baby has been reunited with her impoverished Bangladeshi father 26 years after he last saw her, a newspaper report said on Friday.

Matiur Rahman last saw his daughter Rina in 1979 when she was six months old, according to the Daily Star newspaper, which identified her only by her first name.

The following year Rahman was kidnapped by criminals who he believed belonged to a gang of traffickers.

After escaping from his kidnappers, he went to find his wife and daughter, only to be told by neighbours that his wife had sold the girl.

Years of fruitless searching followed until earlier this year, when he read a newspaper report about a Dutch woman who had returned to Bangladesh with her husband and was looking for him.

“Allah has finally heard my prayers,” the report quoted him as saying. Rina was brought up by a Dutch couple and trained as a lawyer in Holland.

She described finding her father with the help of a local non-governmental organisation as “strange, marvellous” and “above everything.”—AFP