What actually happened6:34A Canadian man tried for months to rescue his sister from war-torn Sudan, only for her to die while waiting.
When the federal government launched a program in late February to reunite people from war-torn Sudan with their families in Canada, Seif Omran Mansour was ready.
The West Vancouver civil engineer was up at the crack of dawn, waiting at his computer to be among the first to apply on behalf of two sisters and their families.
Seven months later, Mansour is still waiting — and his sister is dead.
“If the process had been a little more efficient, quicker and expedited, she would have been in Canada and not had to go through this,” Mansour said. What actually happened Hosted by Nil Koksal.
“This is unfair and this inequity and slow process is costing lives.”
Monsoor, The incident was first reported by The Globe and Mail.is one of thousands of Sudanese-Canadians battling red tape to get their families to safety through a federal reunification program.
The program was created in response to the Civil War and provides a path to permanent residence for Canadian citizens and immediate relatives of residents.
The program reached its limit of 3,250 applications for 7,300 people in June, but so far none have arrived in Canada or been approved for entry.
Michelle Carvert, a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, told CBC the department is reviewing applications “as expeditiously as possible.”
“It is important to note that permanent residence programs like the Sudan humanitarian pathway involve multiple assessment steps before an application is approved,” Carvert said in an emailed statement.
“When Canada responds to international crises, we tailor each response to meet the unique needs of those in need of assistance.”
Outside of the program, more than 2,600 people from Sudan have been approved for permanent or temporary residence in Canada since May 2023.
“We are not being treated equally.”
Mansour’s sister, Ehsan Omran Mansour, was a 60-year-old veterinary researcher and mother of two from Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, who and her family had fled from city to city during the war.
She died on August 16 in the city of Port Sudan from an asthma attack due to lack of access to medical care. Sudan’s civil war has left its health system in disarray.
Her two daughters, both in their early twenties, witnessed what happened.
“My nieces are devastated,” Mansour said. “It was such a shock. They didn’t know what to do.”
Asked who was to blame, he first blamed Sudanese militants, but he also blamed Canada.
He said he had high hopes when he applied to bring his sisters to Canada: He had seen on the news tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees coming to Canada after Russia invaded Ukraine, and more were expected by the end of the year.
“We’re not being treated equally,” he said.
Huwaida Medani of Halifax agreed. She applied in February to bring her brother, his wife and six children to Canada, but has heard little from immigration officials about the status of her application. Her relatives have since fled to Saudi Arabia.
Under the Canadian program, Sudanese Canadians must cover the costs of bringing their families to Canada and then pay the full cost once they arrive.
So while Medani is saving money for when her relatives will one day visit, she also pays to support them in Saudi Arabia, where the terms of their one-year visas mean adults cannot work and children cannot attend school.
Despite all this, she says she’s one of the lucky ones: after all, her family is alive and safe with a roof over their heads.
“Not everyone has that privilege,” she told CBC.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said in March that he expected applicants for the program to start arriving in Canada by the end of the year.
But Medani, who is in a group chat with other Sudanese Canadians who are waiting to apply, said some are being told their applications won’t be processed until 2027 or 2028.
Some, like Mansour, say their relatives died waiting.
“It’s really crazy,” she said. “Nowhere on earth is there anything like what Sudan is going through.”
A major humanitarian crisis
Sudan has been in a state of war since April 2023, when clashes between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Force scuttled plans for a transition to civilian rule.
war, Last month, it passed 500 days.Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. Sudan has more displaced people than any other country in the world, including war-torn Syria and Ukraine.
As Sudan’s brutal civil war rages for more than a year, reducing cities to rubble and forcing millions to flee, humanitarian groups warn the world is forgetting the conflict at a time when international help is needed most.
The United Nations estimates that 25.6 million people, more than half Sudan’s pre-war population, are at risk of severe hunger.
Aid groups say a lack of dedicated funding and crumbling infrastructure inside Sudan make it nearly impossible to deliver aid to those in need.
“Basically people are dying silently and in large numbers,” said Tuna Turkmen of Doctors Without Borders. What actually happened last month.
Meanwhile, Mansour holds out hope of being reunited with his grieving nieces, who were previously registered as dependents of their mother and for which he has had to reapply for them.
He said his sister was a “dedicated professional,” a “loving mother” and a “hard-working woman.”
“She was very, very loved by everyone around her – her colleagues, her family, her daughters. We miss her. We miss her so much,” he said.
“We need to put pressure on the Canadian government. We need to find out what’s going on in Sudan.”
