Canadians leaving the Middle East began arriving at Toronto’s Pearson Airport over the weekend as the war in Iran reached the one-week mark. The first were passengers arriving from Dubai aboard an Emirates flight that the government booked 51 seats on to secure travel for Canadians out of the region.
The federal government says it has reserved hundreds of seats for Canadians on flights leaving the Middle East as the Iran war.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand has said more than 108,000 Canadians in the region have registered with Global Affairs Canada, and about 3,500 of them have asked for help to leave.
Canadians who arrived in Toronto yesterday from Dubai described a long and anxious process to find their way home.
Camille Brown, who touched down in Toronto with her husband and three young children, said the last week has been traumatizing for her family as Iran sent missiles and drones into the United Arab Emirates as part of retaliatory strikes targeting U.S. military infrastructure.
Brown, a Toronto resident who lives part-time in Dubai, says her family lives near an airbase that was frequently targeted by strikes.
“It was just really traumatizing,” she said. “You could hear it, you could feel it. The house was shaking. (It was) the scariest thing I’ve ever been through.”
Brown described panic and anxiety as she tried to keep her family safe in the first few days after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, saying one day she was at the beach with her children, and the next day it was “chaos.”
“We all slept downstairs in the living room, away from windows,” she said.
Brown arrived in Toronto on the Emirates flight, but said her family secured their spots on the flight themselves after the federal government advised Canadians to find their own way out of the region earlier the week.
“We were in Dubai trying to call Emirates … and (my mom in Canada) was the only one that was actually able to get through,” Brown said. “The advice from the Canadian government was to find your own commercial way out. But how is that possible if we can’t even book anything?”
Earlier this week, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Canadians stuck in the Middle East should “prepare departure plans that do not rely solely on government of Canada assistance,” before later announcing plans to book hundreds of seats for Canadians on flights leaving the region.
Brown is calling on the Canadian government to step up measures to evacuate Canadians from the Middle East.
“There’s still a lot of Canadians there. They need to ramp it up,” she said. “We need them in Dubai, in Abu Dhabi, getting Canadians out.”
Barb McBean, who touched down in Toronto with her husband Bob McBean, said she was looking forward to her first good night’s sleep back on home soil “instead of listening for fighter jets and drones.”
The McBeans had been staying at a hotel in the Palm Jumeirah, a man-made island off the coast of Dubai, when the war broke out. They described hearing explosions overhead daily as the UAE government shot down Iranian missiles and drones.
“We did see when the missiles got intercepted,” Bob said. “They’d blow up right in front of your face. You could see them out over the water.”
When the war broke out, Barb said it felt like “COVID all over again” as traffic in Dubai screeched to a halt as residents were told to shelter indoors.
“It was quite nerve-racking because all of a sudden your phone would get these loud alerts saying get covered, go down to basements, get away from windows, and this was going on day and night,” she said. “It was scary for everybody.”
Global Affairs Canada says it is not aware of any Canadians who have been hurt or killed because of hostilities in the Middle East so far. Hundreds more Canadians are expected to fly out of the region in the coming days after the federal government block booked hundreds of seats on outgoing flights.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Friday a chartered flight was set to take 180 Canadians fleeing the Middle East war zone from Dubai to Istanbul on Saturday. The government also block-booked about 50 seats each on a few Air Arabia flights for Canadians travelling from Dubai to Istanbul.
The minister said the government also booked 200 seats on four separate flights from Beirut to Istanbul in the coming days and added that that roughly 325 seats on commercial flights had been secured already for Canadians by diplomatic staff in Beirut.
“We are aware that Canadians have been making their own arrangements, with some choosing ground transportation. I want to reiterate that any ground transportation carries risk,” Anand said.
Anand also said evacuation by sea is “especially dangerous” right now. She said her team is working on getting “all options” on the table to help Canadians who need assistance leaving the region.
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