Family Of Afghan Hell's Kitchen Restaurateur Rescued From Kabul

HELL'S KITCHEN, NY — The owner of an Afghan restaurant in Hell's Kitchen is full of gratitude and disbelief after his wife and children were successfully evacuated from Kabul — thanks in part to a local congressman and a global network of do-gooders.

Mohammad Wali owns Ariana, a small Afghan kebab eatery on Ninth Avenue near West 53rd Street. Last month, he watched with horror as the Taliban closed in on the capital, Kabul, where his wife, Aishah, was living along with their three children as she cared for her ailing father.

Around Aug. 16, Wali — who lives in Plainview, Long Island — contacted the office of his congressman, Tom Suozzi, to describe his family's plight. It was one of dozens of pleas that Suozzi received from constituents with relatives in Afghanistan, the congressman said at a news conference Wednesday outside Wali's restaurant.

"I was struggling, I was pain, I was not able to work my business," Wali said.

But Wali's family was luckier in one key respect: two of his children, eight-year-old Omar and six-year-old Zahra, were already U.S. citizens through their father. His wife was not, nor was his baby son, Yasir, but they could gain entry into the U.S. by escorting the minors.

Suozzi's office reached out to more than a dozen potential helpers, eventually landing on Adam DeMarco: a military veteran who hastily founded a nonprofit, Allied Airlift 21, that is working to evacuate families trying to flee.

Days later, after making a two-hour trek, Wali's wife, children and brother-in-law arrived at the gate to the Kabul airport, his youngest child sporting a red bandana that they had been instructed to bring so that Allied Airlift's staffers would recognize them.

Their ordeal continued for another 48 hours, as the family contended with desperate crowds and occasional gunshots ringing out around the airport. On Aug. 23, they finally boarded a plane, flying to Qatar and then a U.S. military base in Germany before arriving at Washington's Dulles Airport — 12 days and hundreds of calls and WhatsApp messages later.

Late last week, Wali was finally reunited with his wife and children, two weeks after he first made his plea to Suozzi.

"They hugged me for one hour — each child, my wife and everybody," Wali said of the reunion. "Still I did not believe that they are here."

On Wednesday, Wali and Suozzi met and embraced for the first time — joined by his eldest children, Omar and Zahra, who proudly displayed the congressional challenge coins they had been given. (His wife, Aishah, stayed home to care for the baby, who was sick, while Wali's brother-in-law remains in Washington, D.C.)

"Without the work of my wonderful staff, the State Department, U.S. military, and Allied Airlift, the safe evacuation of the Wali family would have not been possible," Suozzi said. The congressman acknowledged, though, that untold numbers of families without U.S. citizenship may be left behind in Afghanistan, due in part to sluggish visa processing.

Omar and Zahra have adjusted well to life in the U.S., Wali said, though they badly miss the only country they had ever known. Soon, they will start school on Long Island — and though they don't yet speak English, Wali is confident that they will master the language.

"They are so smart," he said.