DNA test confirms parents of 'Baby 81'

KALMUNAI, Sri Lanka - The 4-month-old boy dubbed "Baby 81" now has a name - Abilass - and a birth date - Oct. 19 - and two loving parents who can't wait to get him back.

A Sri Lankan court, relying on DNA tests, ruled Monday that the baby recovered from tsunami debris belongs to the couple who launched an agonizing court battle to claim him.

"I am so happy, and I only have to thank God for giving my child back," the boy's joyous father, Murugupillai Jeyarajah, said after the ruling. "We've got the results for all our hardships."

"We're happy!" exclaimed the baby's mother, Jenita.

Eight other couples also tried to claim the boy in the days after the devastating Dec. 26 tsunami. Only the Jeyarajahs filed a formal claim, but they couldn't document the birth because their records and other possessions were lost when the killer waves battered Kalmunai.

They said their baby boy was swept from his mother's arms.

Court-ordered DNA tests were conducted last week at a clinic in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, 185 miles west of this coastal town.

Kalmunai Judge M.P. Mohaideen unsealed the results Monday, read them at a closed meeting with lawyers and then ordered the Jeyarajahs, hospital officials and the baby to come to court Wednesday so the child can be returned to his parents, said S.H.M. Manarudeen, an attorney for the couple.

The lawyer went to the house where the Jeyarajahs are staying temporarily to break the news, and was embraced by the baby's weeping father.

The couple had a private visit with the boy Monday night. The hospital has allowed them to be with the baby every day.

The Jeyarajahs say their son, named Abilass, was born Oct. 19.

He was found amid mud, debris and corpses after the water receded, and was named "Baby 81" because he was the 81st admission at the hospital the day the tsunami hit.

It has been a wrenching seven weeks for the Jeyarajahs. At one point, they barged into the Kalmunai hospital to try to reach the baby and were briefly detained after a scuffle with the staff. Then the father threatened to commit suicide unless the baby was given to them.

The court had originally ordered the hospital to give the couple temporary custody until the boy's parentage could be determined, but doctors refused, arguing he still required medical attention.

"If we were rich and of a higher social caste, the treatment would've been different," said Murugupillai Jeyarajah, a barber.

But he quickly added: "At the same time, if it hadn't been for the doctors, we wouldn't have seen the baby alive."

The story of "Baby 81" was a rare bright spot in a catastrophe that killed at least 167,000 people in a dozen nations, 31,000 of them in Sri Lanka. Tens of thousands more are listed as missing.

Jenita Jeyarajah said that as soon as she regains custody of her son, she will fulfill vows to smash 100 coconuts at a temple of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh, offer sweet rice to the warrior god Murugan and kill a rooster for the goddess Kali.

"Then, we'll decide what to do next," her husband said.