Ontarian trying to flee Sudan with elderly grandmother says Canada misled her
Safia Mustafa says soldiers won't airlift her out unless she abandons her 90-year-old non-Canadian grandmother
Safia Mustafa isn't about to abandon her 90-year-old grandmother at a military base in Sudan.
But that was the choice the Canadian woman says she was faced with on Wednesday. She could either flee to safety with her mother on a U.K. military plane, and leave her non-Canadian grandmother behind. Or they could all stay in an increasingly dangerous country, where rival military factions are battling each other in the streets.
The three women opted to stay together. They watched on Wednesday as a plane full of desperate families took to the sky without them.
"She is our immediate family and we can not leave her," Mustafa told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. "Like, we take care of her."
Mustafa grew up in St. Catharines, Ont., and moved to Sudan two years ago to care for her elderly family. Now she is one of hundreds of Canadians who have requested help getting out of Sudan since conflict broke out between the Sudanese military and a paramilitary group earlier this month.
She says Canadian officials instructed her to take her 75-year-old mother, who is Canadian, and her grandmother, who is not, to a military base outside Khartoum and take a U.K. military flight to safety.
But Global Affairs says Canada is only evacuating Canadian citizens and permanent residents along with their immediate family members and dependents — which it defined as spouses, common-law partners, children and other dependents under the age of 22.
Grandparents and elderly parents are not included, Global Affairs said.
Canadian officials knew grandmother's status, she says
Mustafa says Canadian officials were aware that her grandmother — who she described as "old and frail" — is not a Canadian citizen when they instructed her to flee.
When they arrived the base, however, British soldiers wouldn't let the older woman board without a Canadian visa.
"They're just following their own instructions, and I do respect that. But, like, why would the Canadian government tell me to come here?" she said.
WATCH | Canadians in Sudan await help from government:
When asked about Mustafa's case at a press conference Wednesday, a Global Affairs spokesperson said it "would not be our approach" to advise a Canadian to travel to an evacuation site with a relative who falls outside its definition of a dependent.
"We understand people are in terrible circumstances," said Julie Sunday, Global Affairs assistant deputy minister of consular, security and emergency management.
She promised she would look into Mustafa's case.
Mustafa says she and her family are now stuck at the base. When she spoke to CBC Radio on Wednesday, they were sitting outside with other families in the pouring rain as night set in.
The volatile situation in Sudan means it's almost impossible to access the cash or gas necessary to get back to their Sudanese home, she said. And even if she could, she says driving through the streets of right now means risking life and limb.
"I just wish the Canadian government didn't tell me to leave my [home.] Yeah, it's unsafe, but … at least we had shelter and food and water and bathroom facilities," she said.
"I don't know what went wrong here. Like, who are they communicating with? This is what I would like to know, because nobody here knew anything."
Roughly 1,800 Canadian citizens or permanent residents have registered their presence in Sudan, and 700 of them have asked for help to get out of the country, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said on Wednesday.
So far, 180 of them have been able to leave the country in the last two days with the help of allies, including the U.K. and Germany, Global Affairs said.
About 200 Canadian Armed Forces members landed in Khartoum on Wednesday to help with the evacuation efforts, several hours after Mustafa watched the U.K. plane take off without her.
But under the existing rules, Mustafa's grandmother won't be allowed board one of the Canadian flights either.
Joly said Wednesday that the government is considering a request from Sudanese diaspora groups for relatives to be able to come to Canada on a temporary basis until the violence abates.
In the meantime, Mustafa doesn't know what's going to happen.
"We are stranded on base with no way back and they have directly endangered our lives at this point," she said.
"Honestly, we've been through enough. I haven't slept in two days like it's been hell, so this has just been the cherry on top."
With files from Evan Dyer and The Canadian Press. Interview with Safia Mustafa produced by Chris Harbord.
