Sunday will mark the three-year anniversary of the downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, and for Surrey’s Shahrokh Ferdowsi the pain is still raw.
On Jan. 8, 2020, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot the plane down shortly after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 passengers and crew aboard.
Fifty-five Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents died in the disaster, including Ferdowsi’s cousin, Dr. Farhad Niknam, a Toronto dentist returning home from a Christmas visit in Iran.
“I really miss him, I miss his voice, I miss his presence, I wish he was here,” Ferdowsi told Global News through tears.
“The only thing that they found of his belongings was a pouch he had around his waist and a photo album.”
The photo album was turned to a page with pictures of Niknam’s children.
The final report from Iran’s civil aviation body blamed “human error” for the incident claiming a missile operator misidentified the airliner as a “hostile target” amid rising tensions with the U.S., and fired without getting approval from a superior — a report criticized victim’s families worldwide.
The plane was destroyed after being struck by two missiles fired 30 seconds apart.
Ferdowsi said he thinks often about what the final moments of his cousin’s life were like, in the 30 seconds between those two impacts.
“My guess is the very last moment of his life he opened up the album and was looking at the photos knowing that he was going to die,” Ferdowsi said.
Among the Canadian victims were doctors, dentists, academics, a five-year-old child and a newlywed couple.
“Plus, one of the other passengers was five months pregnant,” Ferdowsi said.
Supporters, friends and families of the victims say there has yet to be justice or accountability for Iran over the tragedy, or a reasonable explanation of why the civilian aircraft was targeted.
Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Ukraine — the four countries accounting for the majority of the victims, have joined together into a coordination group seeking to hold Iran to account for the incident.
Last month, they jointly sent a diplomatic note to Iran, demanding it take part in arbitration under the terms of the 1971 Montreal Convention, an international treaty Iran has also signed.
That treaty requires states to prevent and punish offences against civil aviation. If the countries can’t settle the dispute within six months, Iran can be prosecuted in the International Court of Justice.
Three years later, Iran now finds itself at the centre of another human rights crisis, accused of brutalizing and killing hundreds of civilians amid persistent anti-government protests, spurred by the death of 22-year-old Masha Amini
“I really feel like we are part of a river, we are just swimming in this river, that just every day we add to it, the victims just keep coming in, it’s just getting gibber and bigger,” Fedowsi said.
“And now my fear is that this river is going to turn into an ocean soon. There are just so many victims, like my cousins, that have been hurt by the system.”
Families of the victims of Ukraine Airlines Flight PS752 will hold rallies in more than 100 cities on Sunday to mark the third anniversary of the plane’s downing.