Ontarian trying to flee Sudan with elderly grandmother says Canada misled her
CBC
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.
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.