Canadian stranded in Nepal says Ottawa not doing enough to help citizens go home

KATHMANDU, Nepal – A Montreal woman trying to get home from Nepal after Saturday’s magnitude 7.8 earthquake says Ottawa isn’t doing enough to help expats and travellers stranded in the stricken country.

Emilie-Anne Leroux says that while other countries have pulled out all the stops to get their citizens home, she and other Canadians she knows haven’t received so much as a phone call from officials despite having registered as being in Nepal.

Leroux, who is in Nepal working for the International Organization for Migration, says that’s left some people feeling neglected, frustrated and “very panicky.”

READ MORE: Canada sending disaster response teams to earthquake-stricken Nepal

The 28-year-old was trying to get back to Canada to be with her father, who is having heart surgery, when the earthquake hit. She says the airline could only rebook her on a flight Wednesday and she can’t afford an earlier, pricier ticket.

The Foreign Affairs Department has said there are 388 Canadians registered as being in Nepal, but cautioned that’s only an estimate because registration is voluntary.

The Canadian government is sending a disaster assessment team to Nepal and is contributing $5 million to relief efforts, Foreign Affairs Minister Rob Nicholson’s office said late Saturday.

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The assessment team was part of the Disaster Assistance Response Team, known as DART. The military team is designed to deploy on short notice to deal with natural disasters or humanitarian emergencies.

The earthquake, centred outside the capital city Kathmandu, was the worst to hit the South Asian nation of 31-million in more than 80 years and has left more than 2,500 dead.