Canadian who died in Cuba mistakenly buried in Russia

Ottawa: A Canadian man who died in Cuba last month was mistakenly buried in a Russian town north of Moscow, and officials on Friday were scrambling to...

Ottawa: A Canadian man who died in Cuba last month was mistakenly buried in a Russian town north of Moscow, and officials on Friday were scrambling to repatriate his body.

A government source who was not authorized to speak on the matter told AFP it had been a challenge to determine what had happened to the body of Farajallah Jarjour.

Efforts were now being made to bring his body back to Canada, the official said, after it was found that two bodies had been switched in Cuba before being sent to the wrong countries.

Jarjour, originally from Syria, was vacationing in Varadero, Cuba, when he died suddenly during a swim in the ocean in late March.

His remains were believed to have been sent to Canada, but mortuary technicians in Quebec tasked with preparing the body for burial discovered the man in the coffin looked nothing like a photograph his family provided.