More than 800 Canadians, permanent residents and family members are known to have left Iran, Israel and the West Bank since the government began offering help to those looking to escape the deadly conflict, officials say.
Global Affairs Canada said in its daily update late Wednesday that the agency is also aware of many Canadians across the Middle East region who have reached safety independently.
A tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Iran appeared to hold for a third day Thursday, following 12 days of missile and drone attacks between the two countries.
After Sunday’s U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, U.S. President Donald Trump helped negotiate a ceasefire that came into effect on Tuesday. Further negotiations between the U.S. and Iran are expected next week.
On Thursday, Iran partially reopened its airspace for the eastern half of the country to domestic and international flights, including those transiting Iranian airspace. The airspace had been closed since Israel’s initial attack on Iran two weeks ago.
Since last week, Canadian consular officials have been helping people leave Iran for safe third countries from which they can fly home. They have done the same for Canadians in Israel, whose main international airport was also closed to flights throughout the war, and the West Bank.
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On Wednesday, Global Affairs Canada said government-arranged buses from Tel Aviv and Ramallah to Jordan brought seven people to safety.
The day before, 95 people travelled on a government-chartered plane from Jordan to Greece, where consular officials provided additional assistance for travellers.
The government’s emergency response centre in Ottawa has answered more than 6,000 calls, emails and messages from Canadians in the Middle East requesting assistance or information since June 13, the Wednesday update said.
“All Canadians, permanent residents and eligible family members who have requested assistance from the Government of Canada to leave the region have received information on available departure options,” it said.
The government is urging loved ones of Canadians and permanent residents in Iran to register on their behalf for the citizens abroad registration service, and to provide their mobile phone numbers so they can receive text message updates.
As of Wednesday, there were nearly 5,550 registrants with the service in Iran and another 6,400 in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Global Affairs Canada noted that those numbers do not reflect the exact number of Canadians in those countries, as the registration service is voluntary and may contain outdated information.
The U.S. State Department said Tuesday that it had helped about 400 U.S. citizens and others fly out of Israel since Saturday, while hundreds of people had left Iran through neighbouring Azerbaijan.
The department had shared information with more than 27,000 people about leaving the region and safety and security, up from 25,000 last week.
Dozens of other countries have helped their citizens evacuate the region since the conflict broke out, mostly by helping people leave for safe third countries by land or sea.
Earlier this week, Tehran said 606 people had been killed in the conflict in Iran, with 5,332 people wounded. The Washington-based Human Rights Activists group released figures Wednesday suggesting Israeli strikes on Iran had killed at least 1,054 and wounded 4,476.
The group, which has provided detailed casualty figures from multiple rounds of unrest in Iran, said 417 of those killed were civilians and 318 were security forces.
At least 28 people were killed in Israel and more than 1,000 wounded, according to officials there.
— with files from The Associated Press and Reuters
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