TORONTO, Canada, Jan 9, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – University professors, students,
a newlywed couple: they are among the 63 Canadians lost when a Ukrainian
plane crashed after takeoff in Tehran Wednesday, killing all 176 people on
board.
“Everyone is shocked now,” said Kavoss Zadeh, a resident of Toronto’s
Little Tehran neighborhood.
The Iranian diaspora in North America counts a large portion of its
population in Canada, with more than 210,000 Canadians of Iranian origin
living in the country in 2016, according to official data.
Originally from Tehran, 65-year-old Zadeh has lived in Canada for 30 years
and said he knew many of those killed in the crash.
“Some of them were dentists, doctors, highly educated people,” said the
supermarket owner. “When I heard in the morning, I was so sad.”
The Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 disappeared from radar early
Wednesday, just minutes after taking off from Imam Khomeini airport bound for
Kiev.
There was no immediate indication of foul play, but the disaster brings
more pain to a region already confronting heightened military tensions
between Iran and the United States.
The plane went down shortly after Iran fired missiles at military bases in
Iraq housing US troops.
“They are from my country. It doesn’t matter if they are my relatives or
my friends or not,” said Toronto restaurant server Sahar Azmoudeh, 37. “It’s
the same feeling: sadness and shock.”
At a currency exchange in the Iranian Plaza shopping center, 39-year-old
Mahdi Rozvani knows at least six people who died.
“They are my friends, my customers. I’m shocked.”
York University biology student Saba Kebari, 23, explained why some of her
own friends and classmates were on board.
“The price of the dollar and the currency of our country drastically
changed, and people prefer to have the cheapest flight possible,” she said,
referring to the impact of US economic sanctions. “And one of their options
is the Ukrainian airline.”
– ‘Just terrible’ –
Approximately 30 others on board were from the Edmonton region, Canadian
media said, including a couple who were both professors at the University of
Alberta and their two daughters, aged nine and 14.
“It’s like, how can someone put words to that? It’s just terrible,” the
couple’s friend Payman Parseyan told national broadcaster CBC.
Two students from the University of Guelph in Ontario were on the flight,
as well as one of their spouses, the school said.
Siavash Ghafouri-Azar, 35, and 36-year-old Sara Mamani were coming home
from their own wedding in Iran and also became victims, according to The
Globe and Mail newspaper.
Iranian-born dentist Hamed Esmaeilion said he was supposed to pick up his
wife and nine-year-old daughter at the Toronto airport Wednesday, but after
the crash he instead headed to Tehran by himself to look for answers.
“I have friends here, but no relatives. I have to go. I’m alone here,” he
told the newspaper.
The Tehran crash is the second-deadliest aviation tragedy in Canadian
history, after the 1985 attack on an Air India flight that killed 268
Canadians when it exploded off the coast of Ireland.
Also on board the Ukrainian aircraft were 82 Iranians, 11 Ukrainians, 10
Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans and three Britons.