In Canada, Syrians again seek haven
Though fleeing wildfire, refugees grateful for new life without war
EDMONTON, Alberta — As evacuees from the Fort McMurray wildfire arrive at shelters, hotels and homes of friends here, many say they now have a taste of what a wave of refugees experienced in Syria before they made it to Canada a few months ago.
Wedad Rihani, a 68-year-old lawyer, is well placed to compare the two situations. A Syrian, she arrived in Fort McMurray just 70 days before she became a fire evacuee, one of six members of her family sponsored as refugees by her son, Fahed Labek, a chemist in the oil sands town.
“I left fire back home created by humans to come to the fire here,” Rihani said, her son providing translation. “Here you can escape; at home there’s no escape. Here you get a smile; there you get no help.”
Rihani uses a wheelchair and lost her eyeglasses in the rush to evacuate. She said Fort McMurray, even in its current circumstances, was preferable to what she had abandoned. Heavy smoke
Late Friday, Labek, who is married and has two small children, and his extended family left temporary shelter provided by the Rashid Mosque in the north of Edmonton to check into a hotel. They were among the estimated 25,000 people who fled north from Fort McMurray only to be trapped by the fire in work camps.
Labek’s family arrived in Edmonton on Thursday, part of an airlift south that continued on Saturday and that, along with an evacuation down the highway, ul- timately will move 25,000 people.
Heavy smoke Saturday, however, forced the police to reduce by half the size of the convoys to 24 vehicles at a time.
With no end to the fire in sight and a reopening of what remains of Fort McMurray weeks away, officials, aid groups and volunteers were dealing with the needs of evacuees, integrating their children into schools and addressing their psychological, financial and social concerns.
The Rashid Mosque alone has helped about 100 families. 4,400 cots
An exhibition hall in Edmonton had about 4,400 cots available, along with a variety of services includ- ing veterinary care and insurance claim processing.
Large numbers of refugees have remained in smaller towns and aboriginal reserves between Edmonton, Calgary and Fort McMurray, like Lac La Biche, Alberta.