Kalmunai, Sri Lanka ? DNA test results released Monday confirmed that a 3-month-old infant found amid the rubble in tsunami-battered Sri Lanka and dubbed “Baby 81” belongs to the couple who fought desperately for weeks to gain his custody.

The tests ended eight weeks of uncertainty and drama surrounding the infant, who became a symbol of families torn apart by the Dec. 26 tsunami. Earlier, eight other couples had said they were the boy’s parents, though none of them followed through on their claims.

“I am so happy, and I only have to thank God for giving my child back,” the boy’s father, Murugupillai Jeyarajah, said.

The couple said the baby was swept out of the arms of the mother, Jenita Jeyarajah, by the tsunami, which also carried away their home and family records proving their claim to the infant.

The Jeyarajahs say the child’s name is Abilass, and that he was born Oct. 19.

“It has been confirmed that the baby belongs to that couple,” court official Mohammed Nazir said Monday.

The finding was based on last week’s court-ordered DNA test of the couple and the boy. It ended eight weeks of uncertainty and drama surrounding the infant, who became a symbol of families torn apart by the tsunami.

Because they couldn’t document their claim to the baby, a court ruled that he must stay in the hospital in Kalmunai, 185 miles east of Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, until DNA tests could confirm his parentage.

Jenita Jeyarajah said the first things she’ll do when she gets custody of the baby will be to 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.

Confirming the parentage of infant ‘Baby 81’ — so nicknamed because he was the 81st admission on the day he arrived at the hospital — was an increasingly rare bright spot in a disaster that killed hundreds of thousands of children and left thousands more orphaned when killer waves smashed coastlines in nearly a dozen nations in Asia and Africa.

Although tens of thousands of people are still officially listed as missing from the unprecedented disaster, hopes of finding more survivors have faded, and hundreds of bodies were still being pulled from the debris.

Jenita Jeyarajah and Murugupillai Jeyarajah were confirmed by DNA tests to be the parents of Baby