‘The bombs woke me up’: Montrealers anxious to return home amid war in Iran

Many Canadians remain trapped in the Gulf states, while other have made it home under harrowing circumstances.

Retired Marie-Victorin CEGEP teacher Siham Kortas found herself caught in the crossfire as bombs detonated around her in Beirut as she visited family in her home country of Lebanon.

“The bombs woke me up because we were very near; less than two kilometres between us and (the explosions). The bombing was starting to sound like it was in the apartment,” says the 77-year-old a day after she returned to Montreal.

Kortas says she had one priority: get out of there and fly home.

“I was waiting for the taxi. And we felt the bombing,” she said in an interview.

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The woman says her driver took long detours to the airport to avoid danger zones. She boarded a flight to Oman, then to Montreal, but says she’s concerned about her family that is left behind.

“My brother, my nieces, my cousins, all of them. They are there with my brother,” she said.

Destroyed infrastructures have left many homeless and living in fear.

“People are in a panic now, they sleep outside, in their car,” she said.

Deep inside the Persian Gulf, dozens of seafarers from Quebec are also stuck, incapable of leaving because of a blockade at the Strait of Hormuz.

The Desgagnés maritime transport company from Quebec City currently has two vessels waiting to unload their cargo in Saudi Arabia but they can’t move to their next destination.

“The Strait of Hormuz basically is shut down for security reasons. And so for us, if we look at the risk profile of going through the strait is way too high,” explains company spokesperson Serge Le Guellec.

The risk, he says, remains manageable because the ships are anchored on the Saudi side of the Gulf and not in Iran.

“We will have to wait and see what are going to be those security protocols that are going to be put in place. So that we can transit this trade safely. And that may take a few days,” Le Guellec added.

A group of management students from McGill University visiting Dubai as part of a university-sponsored visit say they left the region as soon as bombs began to fall.

A spokesperson from McGill says they provided support to the group to reach safer destinations, while others remain abroad because of visa requirements where they currently are.