CPTnet
24 June 2007
IRAQ/CANADA: Iraqi-Palestinian refugees--"Tom Fox's People"--arrive in
Ottawa
Smiles and hugs greeted six Iraqi-Palestinian refugees--part of a refugee
group CPT accompanied from Baghdad to the Syrian border in October 2005--as
they arrived at the Ottawa airport on 20 June 2007. CPT contact Rana
Abdulla met Mohamed Younis, Lama Azayza and the family of Sabri El Koury,
Fatima Askari and their children Ahmed (12) and Dina (9.)
As part of his search for people who might be willing to sponsor the
refugees, CPTer Tom Fox contacted Abdulla on 22 November 2005, four days
before he was kidnapped in Iraq along with Norman Kember, Harmeet Singh
Sooden and James Loney. From 4-17 October 2005, he had camped with the
refugees at the border as they waited to learn whether the Syrian government
would let them enter the country. Abdulla responded to Fox's call and
sponsored a group of twenty-four. She has named the group "Tom Fox's
People" in honour of Fox, who was murdered on 9 March 2006.
El Koury's family will be staying in Finch, south of Ottawa while Younis and
Azayza will live in Martintown, near Cornwall, Ontario.
Iraq's 25,000 Palestinians have no citizenship. They live in abject poverty
and face discrimination, arbitrary arrest, torture and death. They are
unable to get travel documents to leave the country and armed groups have
targeted their neighbourhoods with mortar fire. CPT worked closely with
Palestinian community organizers when it maintained a team in Baghdad.
Abdulla teaches taxes and finances at Ottawa's Algonquin College. Her
parents and husband once lived in a refugee camp and she has previously
sponsored dozens of other refugees.
She expects most of the remaining sixteen refugees to arrive and settle in
Canada by the end of the month. The Canadian government has denied the
application of one of the Palestinians, while Syria deported two others who
are currently stuck in a refugee camp located inside Iraq at the Syrian
border.
People interested in reading Fox's account of his time with the refugees at
the Iraqi/Syrian border may find it at
http://waitinginthelight.blogspot.com/
Fox's fellow hostages, Kember, Loney and Sooden, were released in a military
operation on 23 March 2006.
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