Her airport customs experience was also 'very stressing'

Her airport customs experience was also 'very stressing'

Noush Eslaamy, 28, came to Canada via the Vancouver airport in 2005. Her wait to clear customs after a 24-hour trip from Iran was so long, her uncle feared she had been kidnapped.
Gerry Kahrmann, The Province
Worried uncle waited hours in same area as victim's mother
Susan Lazaruk, The Province
Published: Sunday, November 18, 2007
A young woman who immigrated to Canada said she experienced the same frustrating delays and misinformation at the Vancouver airport as Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski.

Noush Eslaamy, 28, immigrated from Iran in September 2004. With limited English skills, Eslaamy said she was confused by the process of clearing customs. But besides three or four customs inspections agents, there were no employees available to help.

"When I came there, the number [being served] was 28 and my number was 800-something," she said from Langley, where she lives with her uncle.


View Larger Image
Noush Eslaamy, 28, came to Canada via the Vancouver airport in 2005. Her wait to clear customs after a 24-hour trip from Iran was so long, her uncle feared she had been kidnapped.
Gerry Kahrmann, The Province

Email to a friend

Printer friendly
Font:****Her trip from Tehran had taken almost 24 hours, and there are no restaurants in customs.

"I was sleepy, I was so hungry and I was cold and I was thirsty," she said.

"It was a different country, a different language, everything was so different and it was very stressing."

Meanwhile, her uncle, Maj Wahage, was waiting patiently in the international arrivals lounge, the same public area where Dziekanski's mother, Zofia Cisow-ski, waited and worried for hours.

Wahage said the only information he could get about his niece was by a telephone hotline near the immigration office, which was closed that day, a Sunday.

He said the operator, whose tone he described as aggressive and unhelpful, told him it typically takes two to four hours to clear customs.

"She was very aggressive, really, really unhelpful, not polite, and she gave me misleading information."

Wahage eventually reported his niece missing to a customs office, worrying she had been kidnapped.

An officer offered to check the waiting room, where he found Eslaamy still waiting for her turn, a small act of kindness for which Wahage remains grateful.

"He was a great guy, a great man, very helpful," he said. "I told him I would never forget him."

Finally, more than seven hours after Eslaamy arrived, she left with her uncle.

The Canadian Border Services Agency has not explained why it took Dziekanski 10 hours to clear customs.

slazaruk@png.canwest.com