British Columbians stuck in Middle East amid airstrikes

Travellers from B.C.’s Lower Mainland are stuck in the Middle East as Israel and Iran trade airstrikes for a sixth day.

Simon Fraser University tells The Leader Spirit it’s in contact with two faculty members who are in Iran with their families. Students suggest one of those faculty members is an SFU engineering professor.

In a Reddit post, a message that appears to be from Prof. Shervin Jannesar to his students says his wife and two infants arrived in Iran before the airstrikes started — and when they began, Jannesar left Canada to meet them.

The Leader Spirit is still trying to reach Jannesar, but his message says he’s stuck in the country as the airspace above Iran is closed off until further notice.

He adds he’s posting recorded lectures online, telling students in part, “As you can most likely hear in my lecture 9 recording, it is literally like a war zone with explosions coming around every now and then.”

“Honestly, that would be a terrifying situation to be in. Especially as I heard he has young kids,” said Matthew Wiebe, Jannesar’s engineering student at BCIT.

Wiebe says Jannesar was his first-year teacher and an advisor for his capstone project.

“He ended up leaving our capstone as the advisor because he had to go back to Iran around March,” says Wiebe.

“Now, just this morning, I heard through a classmate that he was actually stuck in Iran… I just hope he’s just able to return – either, stay safe in Iran, or that he’s able to return to Canada, and that his family is going to be okay — and all of his kids — that everyone is going to be safe.”

Meanwhile in Tel Aviv, bombing continues as Iran strikes back with missiles of its own.

“For the first few days, they were all in the middle of the night,” says Rabbi Philip Bregman, an interfaith liaison with the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, who was reached virtually in Ra’anana, a suburb 21 kilometres north of Tel Aviv.

Bregman says he was doing volunteer work in the city, and he too is unable to leave.

“My airline ticket was not with El Al, who is the only operating airline coming in now, and so you can’t make a new reservation with El Al until July,” says Bregman.

“And a number of the other airlines, they’re not telling you when they’re going to resume operations.”

Options to leave the embattled region are limited to ground travel. From Israel, the only commercial options are to travel to Jordan or Egypt.

For those stuck in Iran, the options are to cross into Armenia or Turkey.