After a long day of travel, the first group of Syrian refugees airlifted to Canada checked in to their hotel just before 4 a.m. Friday.
“We suffered a lot,” said Kevork Jamkossian, who stepped off the first government flight with his wife, Georgina Zires, and the couple’s 16-month-old daughter, Madeleine.
“Now, we feel as if we got out of hell and we came to paradise,” Jamkossian said.
The Canadian forces plane carrying 163 privately sponsored refugees touched down at Pearson International Airport just before midnight, its passengers met by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and other dignitaries.
Trudeau and Wynne greeted the first two families to come through processing and gave them winter coats.
“We’re so glad you’re here,” Wynne told the family, before handing Madeleine a teddy bear, which the young girl accepted with a shy smile.
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NATHAN DENETTE / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greets refugees from Syria with cold-weather clothing as they arrive at Pearson International airport Thursday.
“We really would like to thank you for all this hospitality and the warm welcome and all the staff — we felt ourselves at home and we felt ourselves highly respected,” Jamkossian told Trudea
“You are home,” Trudeau said. “Welcome home.”
The second family to be processed was Vanig Garabedian, his wife Anjilik Jaghlassian, and their three daughters, 12-year-old twins Lucie and Sylvie and Anna-Maria, 10.
STEVE RUSSELL
Some 28 hours after setting off for Canada, Syrian refugees begin arriving at the Travelodge hotel on Dixon Rd. Friday morning.
“They step off the plane as refugees, but they walk out of this terminal as permanent residents of Canada with social insurance numbers, with health cards and with an opportunity to become full Canadians,” Trudeau said just prior to the plane’s arrival.
“This is something that we are able to do in this country because we define a Canadian not by a skin colour or a language or a religion or a background, but by a shared set of values, aspirations, hopes and dreams that not just Canadians but people around the world share.”
The refugee families, mostly from Aleppo and Damascus, clapped and cheered as the plane touched down in Toronto, the International Organization for Migration said in a statement.
“I am so thankful that this dream has come true for me,” Hala, 23, told IOM staff on the flight. “I was living in a two-bedroom flat in Beirut with 25 other family members. I was going to law school in Damascus, but had to drop out in my last year because of the war. I want to continue my education in Canada and become a lawyer.”
STEVE RUSSELL
Tired new arrivals step off a chartered bus and carrying all the belongings they left home with along with the welcome gift packages from Canada.
And more than 28 hours after they launched their journey from Beirut to Canada, the group of refugees finally arrived at the Travelodge Hotel on Dixon Rd. at 3:12 a.m., Friday.
“I can’t explain my closure, my feelings,” one man told reporters soon after arriving at the hotel.
Slowly, the tired men, women, children — still overwhelmed with emotions — got off the white, chartered bus and into the chilly morning air, carrying all the belongings they left home with along with the welcome gift packages from Canada.
STEVE RUSSELL
Newcomers arrive at the Travelodge hotel after making the 28-hour journey from Beirut.
Refugees carried their belongings in red plastic bags with a sticker that read “Welcome to Canada.” A young girl in a pink jacket and matching hat and scarf descended the steps of the bus, while a father carried his daughter in his arms into the hotel.
A couple of Syrian Canadians still on hand welcomed their countrymen in Arabic.
Surrounded by a media pack, amid spotlights and camera flashes, the newcomers were ushered into the hotel where they were hoping for a good night of sleep before being greeted and picked up by families, relatives and for some, the Canadian sponsors that they have never met.
“We faced some very bad positions,” said one man in a blue down jacket, who fled Damascus with his wife and two children last year.
