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Arash Ghaderi cannot forget the moment when his wife woke him up in tears to tell him that a war had just started.
Ghaderi, a 35 -year -old doctoral student at the University of Alberta, and his wife traveled last month Iran To visit their family members. The couple was still there when the conflict between Israel and Iran broke out on June 13.
“(ON) The very first day of the war, we heard bomb attacks and we heard the jets flying low on the ground. It was so terrifying,” he said in an interview.
“The members of my wife’s family, her nieces and her nephews, were there and they were crying … The noise was so horrible,” he said about their experience in Zanjan, a city about 300 kilometers northwest of Tehran.
“I just did my best to control myself and try to calm my wife, but in my heart, I was so shocked and I felt so bad. I wanted to vomit actually. “
Ghaderi is one of the many Iranians living in Canada who were affected by the war that broke out when Israel attacked Iranian nuclear installations and senior military leaders, and Iran responded with his own strikes. A ceasefire was announced on Tuesday, after the United States launched strikes on the main nuclear installations in Iran.
Earlier this week, Tehran said that 606 people in Iran were killed in the conflict, with 5,332 people injured. According to officials of this country.
Ottawa urged Canadians in Iran to leave if they can do so safely, noting that its ability to provide consular services in the country is “extremely limited”.
Ghaderi said that he and his wife had decided to leave Iran through the land border after all the flights were canceled at the start of the conflict. They traveled seven hours in a van before crossing Turkey. All interior flights in Türkiye have been completely reserved for days, so they had to take several buses between Turkish cities for about 28 hours to Istanbul.
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“I couldn’t feel my legs anymore,” he said about the long journey.
Ghaderi and his wife finally flew to Edmonton d’Istanbul via Paris and Toronto, landing on June 23.
“I was happy on the way, on the one hand, that at least my wife and I are safe now,” he said. “On the other hand, I felt so bad because my little brother is still in Iran, and my parents are there.”
Sara Shani, president of Iranian Students Association of the University of Alberta, said that she was aware of fifteen students at school who found themselves trapped in Iran during their visit to their country of origin.
“They are stuck at home and … from the ceasefire, thefts have technically resumed, but they are still very limited,” she said.
Shani said that some of the approximately 500 Iranian students from the University are already faced with financial difficulties because their families at home are unable to support them – either because they have lost income and assets during the conflict or because they are unable to transfer money to Canada.
“When the internet closure was in a way in place in Iran … It made it extremely difficult for families to send money, and in addition to that, many companies were closed during the war,” she said.
“And some have even been destroyed by Israeli air strikes … The economy in Iran is now lower than before.”
Shani said that she had trouble contacting her own family in Iran during the war.
“Many of us did not know if our families were safe,” she said.
Iran is a significant source of international students in Canada, government data showing that more than 8,000 study permits have been approved for students in this country in 2023.
“Most Iranian students in Canada only left the house recently to study here, so our links with Iran are still very strong,” said Shani, who came to Canada in 2023 to continue a master’s degree in computer science.
“Our families are there and I think that emotionally we are still in Iran.”
The community also has mixed emotions on strikes against the direction of the body of the Islamic guard, which “continues to be a source of oppression for Iranians inside and outside Iran,” said Ali Nejati, president of Iranian Student Association in Humber College in Toronto.
“Many of us feel a feeling of relief in the face of the weakening of such a violent arm of the regime. We hoped to see justice serve in a courtroom, to expose the full extent of their crimes and keep them responsible through international legal channels,” he wrote in a statement.
“We also recognize that war is never a desirable path. Many of our members feel concerned about the consequences of an additional escalation. ”
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press
