On June 4, please make two phone calls (sample messages below) on the 52nd anniversary of Canada signing the Refugee Convention. The federal government must abide by its legal commitment and issue urgent temporary resident permits to Jihan Qunoo’s three girls, aged 6 to 11 – Aleen, Kenzi and Maryam – and husband Mohammed, stuck in Gaza. Otherwise, Jihan will be forced by Canada’s failure to act to board a plane June 9 at 4 pm and head back to the Middle East in a desperate bid to save her family on her own. We cannot allow this to happen when the Immigration Minister has all the paperwork needed to issue the permits, as well as the legislated power to do so on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
Canada has recognized Jihan’s refugee status but has failed to begin processing her family’s file. The permits would allow the family, traumatized by years of separation, deprivation, and war, to come to Ottawa and heal together during a processing period that recent estimates show could be up to 39 months.
It is almost two weeks since urgent temporary resident permit applications were submitted for the three traumatized children and their father. It is also almost a month since Jihan, an Ottawa refugee, went public, pleading with the federal government to reunite her three children and husband from the Gaza war zone where her immediate loved ones are desperately clinging to the hope of immediate reunification in Canada.
Jihan’s plea to Prime Minister Trudeau and Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino is printed below.
Here are two messages with phone numbers. You can email tasc@web.ca to let us know you called.
SAMPLE MESSAGE 1
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister’s Office, 613 992-4211 (They may try to transfer you to the useless immigration line. Don’t let them. Say you have a message to leave with the Prime Minister about an important human rights issue.)
Hi, my name is XXXXXXX and I am calling to support Ottawa Palestinian refugee Jihan Qunoo. She desperately needs to be reunited with her three traumatized children and husband from Gaza. Last month, the building next to them was hit, and 12 people were killed. The girls are terrified. Her application for early entrance temporary resident permits is sitting unanswered in Marco Mendicino’s office, so I am turning to you to urge you to speak with him to get those permits issued immediately. Otherwise, Jihan will be forced to fly to the Middle East herself with a flight scheduled for June 9 at 4 pm. Please don’t make her have to try and rescue her family on her own. Canada should step up, do the right thing, and issue those permits now. Thank you.
SAMPLE MESSAGE 2
Parliamentary Secretary to the Immigration Minister, Peter Schiefke 613-957-3744 (or, if full, 450-510-2305)
Hi, my name is XXXXXXX and I am calling to support Ottawa Palestinian refugee Jihan Qunoo. She desperately needs to be reunited with her three traumatized children and husband from Gaza. Last month, the building next to them was hit, and 12 people were killed. The girls are terrified. Her application for temporary resident permits is sitting unanswered in Marco Mendicino’s office, so I am turning to you as Parliamentary Secretary to urge you to speak with him to get those permits issued immediately. Otherwise, Jihan will be forced to fly to the Middle East herself on June 9 at 4 pm. Please don’t make her have to try and rescue her family on her own. Canada should step up, do the right thing, and issue those permits now. You yourself have spoken eloquently about your own grandmother’s flight as a refugee from a dictatorship, and so hopefully understand this urgent situation. Thank you
Jihan’s Desperate Plea to Reunite Her Family (the video will be uploaded shortly)
This is a plea to Prime Minister Trudeau and Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino.
My name is Jihan Qunoo and I am a refugee in Ottawa. I need you to issue temporary resident permits to my three little girls and husband no later than 12 noon on June 9 so they can get out of Gaza.
Otherwise, I am left with no choice but to board a flight the afternoon of June 9 to return to the Middle East and try to rescue them myself. Please don’t put me into this corner. You have everything you need to issue the permits. Each minute of waiting is torture for me and my family.
I am desperate…
Having to experience first-hand what my kids went through in recent conflict in Gaza, prior to the cease fire, has played havoc with my emotions. The fear of losing them forever or never having to hold them, hug them, hear their laughter or experience sibling bickering has created a sense of terror and extreme insecurity.
I am from Gaza, have lived through tough times and this constant fear of not knowing what the future will hold is not new to me but nothing, and I say it again, that NOTHING compares to the terror that I now feel for not seeing my daughters again – I was not with them when the air strikes blew UP the building right next to my kids’ home with 12 people dead leaving 1 infant as a survivor. I was not with them when they were running around in fear and didn’t know where to hide, and I was not with them when they cling to each other and kept screaming during the night for me to help them!
It is this extreme apprehension that has pushed me to make every desperate attempt a mother would make to connect with her kids. I cannot let another airstrike, or another lost life be the determining factor of the fate of my girls. I have to be with them, I have to protect them and be their sanctuary even if it risks all what I fought for, even if it risks that I go back to where I ran from.
The ceasefire has provided a temporary reprieve from the constant threat but it has also created more desperation. My girls cannot sleep at night, they huddle in one room and sleep when it is day time as they believe and fear that death comes with the night.
Unless you can issue the temporary resident permits by June 9 at 12 noon, I will be forced to leave for the Middle East. I am not sure how I can bring them across the GAZA border but I have been trying, and will do whatever a mother can do to save her kids and her husband in the hope that they never have to go back to Gaza, that they never look back to the time of war and terror. I hope through the support of the Canadian government, I am able to bring them to Canada – where they have the opportunity to heal and move forward and have hopes and dreams that all young girls their age have the right to!!
I do not want to make this difficult journey, but if we do not receive those permits, you will be forcing me to leave so that as a mother I can save them and be with them in any way I can…
Thank you for watching this video.
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