KAWARTHA LAKES-When Asieh Banisadr awoke on the morning of January 8,2020 she had 20 missed calls from her sister on her phone. She immediately knew something was wrong.
“I called my sister and with a souless voice she told me moms plane crashed… I froze, her voice was so cold I belived her and I said politics has no diginity.” Banisdar told Kawartha 411 news.
Niloufar Sadr was just 61-years-old when Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was shot down minutes after taking off from Tehran, Iran, by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. Banisadr says her mom was ray of love and light.
“My mom was an ocean of love, she was full of love and she gave love unconditionally to strangers, family and friends. She raised me with love and I became a mom myself and I try to be just a little bit like her.”
The Canadian government says fifty-five Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents were among the 176 people killed. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard said it had mistaken the aircraft for an incoming missile.
Banisadr and other victims families aren’t buying the Iranian version of events and believe politics played a role in the downing of flight 752. They want the Trudeau government to live up to it’s promise to stand with them and hold those responsible to account.
“Our mission is to remind policitains in Canada that they said they would stand by us to seek justice and accountability for our loved ones and they didn’t. We are not happy with the politicians because they are being politicians and politicans lie.”
Shortly after the incident Trudeau called it a national tragedy and said he was” furious and outraged”.
“Shooting down a civilian aircraft is horrific,” he said. “Iran must take full responsibility.”
In March 2021, Canada’s air-safety investigator said Iranian officials failed to provide evidence that Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was shot down by mistake.
“First and foremost, we will continue to be there to support the families and fulfil our promise to find out exactly what went wrong, how this terrible tragedy could happen and ensure that Iran wields full responsibility for its role in the loss of so many lives,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa in March 2021.
But the families of those killed say nothing has been done and they are planning on hand- delivering a letter to the Prime Minister. The familes are walking from Elgin Mills Cemetery in Richmond Hill, where many of the victims are buried, to Ottawa. We spoke to them on their way through the Peterborough area.
“We want them to immediately put Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on the list of terrorist organizations. We want justice we want accountability, we want the Canadian government to stop treating the immigrant victims as second class citizens.” Bandisadr told Kawartha 411 News. “We are hoping our kids who are born here would matter more than we did.”
Hear from more families in the video below as they walk along the highway just outside of Peterborough.
