BOSTON (WHDH) - The impact from an explosion at Afghanistan’s main airport are rippling across the globe Thursday night and especially so at the Ariana restaurant in Brighton.
Najeeb Rostami said he has been running the family business while working constantly to try to get the rest of his family out of Kabul and into the US.
“My brother told me early in the morning he was going to go to the airport and bring my mom’s paperwork, she’s a green card holder,” Rostami explained.
He said his 75-year-old mother was in Afghanistan helping out his siblings. At first, he was waiting for instructions from the US Embassy but, finally agreed his younger brother should go to the airport to see what he could do.
“But, this morning when I heard there’s a blast and I called my brother and for a minute he didn’t pick up the phone. It was pretty tough,” Rostami said. “But then thank God he called me back.”
His brother was on the opposite side of the crowd when the bomb went off. He is physically OK but in shock.
“He says, ‘What I saw today, it was, nobody should see it. I passed by so many dead bodies and wounded. It was in chaos,” Rostami said of his brother.
He and the rest of the family, three brothers, three sisters, nieces, and nephews are hunkered down at home in the Afghan capital. They are not planning to make another trip to the airport without diplomatic help.
“Unless we hear something from the US Embassy as to where to go,” he said. “But going to the airport, no.”
Rostami has lived in Boston with his wife, three kids, and brother for more than 15 years. He said the rest of the family planned to stay in Afghanistan but everything is different now.
“It’s way too much. We didn’t think it was going to happen that quickly, that fast,” he said. “There are so many people shocked. The whole country right now is upside down.”
He said he has been working with Senator Ed Markey’s office to try and get his family out and that he is hopeful it will happen before the Aug. 31 deadline.
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