City mourns as Iran crash memorial brings tears, silence

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This article was published 09/01/2020 (1715 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There was silence. There were sobs. And there were strings — which echoed in the atrium where hundreds gathered to memorialize the lives of the Winnipeggers who didn’t make it home after boarding Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752.

Following a long line of speeches from loved ones, spoken to a grieving crowd at the University of Manitoba, Amin Montazeri strummed songs on his tar, a traditional Iranian instrument.

“It was mostly improv, but there was one particular song, which translates into ‘My beloved has gone,’” said Montazeri, an international U of M kinesiology student from Iran.

During his Friday afternoon performance, the musician told the crowd, in Farsi, he hoped his music could relieve the tension and pain they were going through after the tragic incident, if even for just a moment.

All 176 people aboard Flight 752 died when the jet crashed Wednesday shortly after takeoff from Tehran. Although it was Kyiv-bound, there were 138 passengers heading on to Canada.

Eleven had connections to Winnipeg, including eight city residents, two U of M graduates who went on to become engineering instructors at the University of Alberta, and a Toronto dentist who lived in the city briefly.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation, although Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has revealed Canada has intelligence an Iranian missile shot down the aircraft.

No matter the cause, Ayda Mohammadian said, nothing changes the fact she lost her boyfriend, Amirhossein Ghorbani — a loss that has left her unable to eat or sleep. Mohammadian, a 19-year-old pre-med student at U of M, said she still can’t believe there was no one to pick up at the airport Wednesday.

“I wish I could be on that plane, to spend my time with him. I wanted to be with him until the last second — to hold his hands so that he could share his fear. I’m thinking: how did he feel, what kind of feeling did he have in that four minutes?” said Mohammadian, wiping away tears with a tissue.

The flight crashed less than four minutes after it took off from a landing strip in Iran’s capital.

Like many of those aboard the jet, 21-year-old Ghorbani had returned home to visit his family over the holidays. The aspiring doctor was supposed to return home to a surprise party organized by his girlfriend.

Forough Khadem, Mehdi Sadeghi, Bahareh Hajesfandiari, Anisa Sadeghi, Amirhossein Ghasemi, Farzaneh Naderi, Noojan Sadr, Pedram Mousavi, Mojgan Daneshmand and Dr. Farhad Niknam are also being mourned.

Their photos were framed and placed alongside candles and rose petals on a table at the vigil. Beside the tribute and an accompanying slideshow, speakers reflected on their relationships with those pictured, and struggled to find meaning in the widespread loss.

A member of Winnipeg’s tight-knit Iranian community, Elahe Taji, 31, listened among the crowd in honour of her colleague Naderi and her 11-year old son, Noojan.

Naderi volunteered for three years before being permanently employed as a tutor for children with autism at St. Amant. In her spare time, she enjoyed cooking.

“She was really skillful in her job. She was so famous (amongst all the students),” Taji recalled.

In a statement to the Free Press, the family said Noojan was a bright, mature child who enjoyed hanging out with friends and playing video games and soccer.

Days after the crash, it was also revealed Niknam was on the airplane. An Iranian dentist, the 44-year-old moved to Winnipeg in 2016, and later Toronto, to complete his dentistry training. He was supposed to get his licence to practice in Canada after he landed this week.

A long-time friend, Yalda Mojaver described Niknam as a warm-hearted, humorous man who always tried to make those around him smile — both at work and outside it. “He was always ready to help his friends,” Mojaver said.

After the ceremony, musician Montazeri said he felt comforted by all the attendees at the vigil.

“In such times, you just have to come together and help each other and uplift each other in any way we can,” he said.

— with files from Danielle Da Silva

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie

Maggie Macintosh
Reporter

Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Winnipeg Free Press. Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

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