Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Canada is pursuing multiple options to help more than 2,000 Canadians who have requested assistance to leave the Middle East, as some Canadians in the region are calling on the government to do more to help them get home.
Devin Ramoutar said he arrived in Dubai with his parents and sister on Thursday for a short vacation and they were supposed to head back home on Monday, but their flight has been cancelled six times since American airstrikes on Iran began Saturday.
"When we heard the news, I booked an emergency flight out that was immediately cancelled and then the original flight has been bounced five times now," the 27-year-old Toronto resident said in a phone interview Wednesday.
"Thankfully we're together because that's keeping us pretty mentally healthy."
Ramoutar said he contacted the Canadian government immediately after the war started and only heard back after about 48 hours via email with general information about how to leave the United Arab Emirates through land border crossings with Saudi Arabia and Oman.
"Basically, there's not much help or much guidance, none at all actually, and that's the only sort of response we've received, not a single person has reached out to us after that," he said. "We need verified information to make an informed decision."
Anand rejected any suggestion Canada wasn't doing as much as other countries to help its citizens.
"We've been at this for days to ensure that we have options in place for Canadians," she said, in a press conference on Wednesday evening in Ottawa.
Anand said more than 106,000 Canadians and permanent residents have registered in the Middle East, and of those, 2,035 people have requested help to leave amid an escalating conflict following U.S. attacks on Iran that began on Feb. 28. She encouraged those in the Middle East who have not yet registered with the Registration of Canadians Abroad service to do so now.
She said the options available depend on whether local airspace is open, including the possibility of some charter flights operated by Canada or some of its allies, or securing a seat in blocks bought by Global Affairs Canada for Canadians. There is also some assistance being offered to help Canadians travel by land to airports that are still open.
"I want to speak directly now to Canadians in the Middle East and the Gulf region," Anand said. "Your government is with you."
On Wednesday morning, Anand said Canada was not currently offering any charters and that Canadians in the region should "prepare departure plans that do not rely solely on government of Canada assistance."
But by Wednesday evening that had changed, as Anand said she had directed her officials to sign contracts to charter flights for Canadians who are in the United Arab Emirates.
More than half the people seeking help to get home — 1,171 as of Wednesday evening — are in the UAE, where there is limited airspace open.
"This charter is contingent upon receipt of the necessary approval to use their airspace, which we have already requested, and I personally am involved in these requests at a diplomatic level," Anand said. "Flights will be available on a cost recovery basis to Canadians, and the number of flights will be tailored to demand."
While the 106,000 Canadians registered in the Middle East are stretched across more than a dozen countries, Anand said 85 per cent of the ones who have asked for help to leave are in just five of those — the 1,171 in UAE, 237 in Qatar, 164 in Lebanon, 93 in Israel and 74 in Iran.
Canada can provide very limited help in Iran, she said, where it has no diplomatic presence. Anand said 3,000 Canadians in Iran have registered with the Registration of Canadians Abroad service.
Global Affairs has sent additional consular staff to border areas around Iran including in Turkey, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Israel and Azerbaijan. If Canadians can make it to the border, consular staff will be there to assist them.
Canada secured 75 seats on a commercial flight out of Beirut on Wednesday, with 200 more seats to be available in the next few days.
Anand said there are no commercial options in Qatar, where airspace is closed entirely, but Qatar Airlines is providing bus transfers to people with tickets to an airport in Saudi Arabia to fly out of there. Anand said Israel is also operating a bus service to Eqypt, where passengers can then travel onward to airports that are in operation.
She warned there are risks with ground transportation, and that staying put can sometimes be the safer option.
"While we have no indication of roads being targeted by Iranian missiles, when they are intercepted overhead, debris can fall on the road below," Anand said.
"Canadians should — no matter which country they are in — only travel when it is safe to do so and follow local advice."
Ramoutar said his family is not receiving any support from the Canadian Embassy and they've had to extend their Airbnb stay in Dubai while waiting to find a flight back to Canada.
"Obviously, we're the byproduct of this war, we're not involved, so a sense of urgency, I think, is what's needed now to get us out because, the situation is indefinite," he said.
"Delay is not the word. At this point, it's just indefinite, so we can't continue to be here as the uncertainty prevails."
Simon Marcotte arrived in Dubai with his fiancée and her child last month on a work trip and he said they are considering their options now as the vast majority of flights out of the city have been cancelled.
The 33-year-old from Quebec City said his family had to shelter in their building's basement earlier this week.
"We received an alert on our phone, like Amber Alerts, but it was saying 'a missile may be incoming, please find shelter.' We panicked a little bit," he said in an interview.
"I got some dry food and water, and we went to the basement and to the parking where we found some other families and old people sleeping there. We stayed about three hours in the basement, before we decided to go back because things look more calm."
Marcotte, who works in marketing, said he continued to hear jets flying by and explosions from time to time.
"Most of the incidents that happened here were a drone that has been taken down," he said.
Marcotte said he received information from the Canadian government on how to leave via land border crossings and he finds that helpful in case he and his fiancée decide to head to Oman.
Canadians are being advised to avoid all travel to a number of countries in the region as the conflict widens. The war erupted as the United States and Israel launched major strikes on Iran, and Iran retaliated with strikes in various parts of the region.
Lebanon was dragged early Monday into the war when Hezbollah fired rockets and drones into northern Israel, triggering Israeli retaliatory airstrikes on different parts of the country. Those retaliatory strikes have killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands from southern Lebanon, the eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Israeli authorities and Hezbollah had agreed to a ceasefire in late 2024 after the Iranian-backed militant group started firing at Israel in response to the war in Gaza.
Picture Courtesy: AP Photo/Altaf Qadri
