India's stats on student deaths in Canada sit heavily on family of London hit-and-run victim

A 29-year-old man who was killed in a hit and run on Sept. 18, 2022, after coming to London, Ont., is among 172 students from India who have died in Canada over the past five years for a range of reasons, according to the Indian government.

Jibin Benoy is included in Indian Ministry of External Affairs statistics that indicate the number of students from that country who died between 2019 and July 2024 is higher in Canada than anywhere else in the world. 

The deaths in Canada have largely been attributed to natural causes, accidents and medical conditions, with nine described as being "due to attacks."

Benoy was killed cycling home at 4 a.m. from his part-time job at a downtown fast-food restaurant in September 2022. The second-year international student was enrolled in operations management at Fanshawe College, juggling school and work to make ends meet. 

"I think nobody cares about the life of the students here," said Benoy's brother-in-law, Roshan Mathew, who came from Kerala with Benoy to Ontario to study and now works in Prince Edward Island. "His father and mother, they are still grieving their son's death and I don't think that they can ever recover from that." 

While Benoy's death made headlines, the reasons others died remain a mystery. CBC News made multiple requests to the Indian government for details on cause, location and names of the deceased. 

Source: Indian Ministry of External Affairs

"It's really alarming, concerning and shameful," Adaeze Mbalaja, chair of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS)-Ontario, said when she learned of the Indian government's numbers for Canada.  

"What we're seeing across the board is the exploitation of international students. Our institutions and our governments, who like to profit off of international students, particularly from South Asian communities, aren't doing enough to stop it." 

While the causes of the deaths are varied, experts who work with international students wonder if the statistics are due to the high number of Indian students studying in Canada. 

More than a million international students came to Canada at the end of 2023, according to the Canadian Bureau for International Education, with 41 per cent of them from India — the highest of any group. Overall, Canada's international student population grew by 63 per cent in the past five years. 

"That number [of international students] is extremely large considering the total size of the population of the country," Toronto immigration lawyer Sergio R. Karas said. "No other country in the Western world has so many foreign students per capita." 

Source: ApplyBoard, Kitchener, Ont.

He added that these foreign students have been arriving as Canada's cost of living is higher than ever amid an affordable housing crisis. International students also pay four times the tuition compared to Canadian students.