Exile in Erbil: Ottawa accused of abandoning Canadian woman stranded in Iraq

Ottawa has been accused of deliberately blocking a Canadian woman from returning home to her family, after she was released from an ISIS detention camp in northeast Syria. Stranded in Iraq for four months, she has been waiting for emergency travel documents that should have taken only days to issue, all the while separated from her young daughter, who is in Canada, writes London Bureau Chief Paul Workman in an exclusive piece for CTVNews.ca.

The child had been rescued from the same miserable prison just months earlier, a painful separation from her mother, organized by a former American diplomat who had time, money and the right connections to make it happen.

“He saved my life, he saved my daughter’s life,” the woman told me from the Iraqi city of Erbil, where she’s been marooned, waiting for Canada to issue her emergency travel papers, a process that should take days, not months.

She’s been living in a hotel, with an expired Iraqi visa, afraid she’ll be picked up and sent back to Syria. Under a court ruling, meant to protect her safety, she can only be identified by her initials, SA.

“I’m trying to preserve my mental health,” she told me in her first extensive interview with Canadian media. “I want to be in a good state of mind when I see my daughter again.”