The family of a sixty-year-old Quebecer, who died of a heart attack in Cuba, received the remains of a Russian citizen instead of the body of their relative.
Faraj Allah Jarjour He died on March 22 in Cuba while on vacation in Varadero with his family. Now she denounces the negligence and errors committed by the Cuban authorities and the Canadian embassy in Havana, in charge of the repatriation of her remains.
This is what they told the Canadian media this Sunday The Journal of Quebec, outraged by an error for which no one has apologized or offered an explanation. After receiving the wrong body on Friday, the Jarjour family is wondering where the man's body is now and what happened to his remains.
“Where is our father? Everyone tells me it's not their responsibility. But whose responsibility is it?” he protested. Miriam Jarjour, who has been trying to get an answer to a seemingly simple question for several days, but for which no one seems to have an explanation.
Faraj Allah arrived at the Meliá Varadero Hotel in March to spend a week of all-inclusive vacation. However, the 68-year-old's fortunes took a tragic turn when he suffered a heart attack while swimming in the sea with his daughter.
“I started screaming: help me!” Miriam told The Journal of Quebec. However, according to the family, there were no lifeguards near the beach. It was his brother Karam the first to come to help them, but it was already in vain.
Apparently there were no doctors or nurses in the hotel complex. Employees therefore placed Mr. Jarjour's body on a sun lounger on the beach while they waited for the funeral transporter.
The remains were exposed to the Cuban sun for more than eight hours, until employees came to collect them in the late afternoon. The family never saw the body again.
In the following days, Mr. Jarjour's relatives made numerous arrangements with the Canadian embassy in Havana in order to repatriate the body, since they are the ones who make the connection with Cuba and the companies specialized in this type of transportation.
They had to pool their savings to cover the more than $10,000 it cost to repatriate the body to Montreal., where they are still waiting for him to be buried, after realizing the unprecedented mistake made with the body of Faraj Allah.
Instead of the father, an immigrant of Syrian origin who had lived in Canada for eight years, the family found the body of a stranger.
Once at the funeral home, the family realized that the body inside the coffin was not the correct one, even though it had Mr. Jarjour's identification documents. “I was in shock, I was crying. What could I say to my mother?” Karam said.
Inside the coffin was not his father, but a Russian man with hair (his father had none), tattoos and 20 years younger than Mr. Jarjour, who had died in Saint Lucia. Immediately, Russian consular authorities mobilized to locate the body of their citizen and repatriate him to his loved ones.
Since then, Faraj Allah Jarjour's family has not heard from Ottawa and still does not know where the remains may be. “The Canadian authorities should know that this is not a t-shirt or something sent by Amazon,” complained the son of the deceased.
The Journal of Quebec He contacted the Canadian Foreign Ministry (Global Affairs Canada), but it did not respond to his interview request or comment on an error that puts the quality of the tourist offer in the spotlight again of the Cuban regime, and complaints from Canadian tourists, which constitute the first group of clients by country of the most important sector in the Cuban economy.
Other cases of Canadian and Russian tourists who died in Cuba
The case of Faraj Allah Jarjour is not the only one of Canadian tourists who have lost their lives in Cuba.
In February, a Canadian tourist identified as Sherman Peltier died as a result of a fall while on vacation in Cuba.
The man, who was the father of seven children, had traveled with his family to the island, where he had a "tragic fall that ended his life," explained a family friend, in charge of a fundraising account on GoFundMe. to repatriate the body.
She said he "leaves behind his loving wife and 7 amazing children" and called him a "very loving husband and devoted father" who "loved his job and took pride in his work as a cleaner."
In July 2017, An 18-year-old Canadian girl died of unknown causes during a tourist trip to Cuba. Although the Ottawa authorities did not provide details of the incident, the media stated that it was Alex Sagriff, a graduate of St. Theresa College and a resident of the city of Belleville, Ontario.
Sagriff was in Varadero as part of a graduation trip, organized by the S-Trip agency, when he died. Cuban authorities indicated that the death occurred from "natural" causes. However, the Canadian government assured that consular officials were in contact with the Cuban government to clarify the case.
In October 2023, the Russian musician Andrey Serebrennikov, pioneer of punk rock in his country, died in Cuba, presumably from drowning after suffering a heart attack, according to the media in his country.
Serebrennikov, 60 years old and leader of the band Punks on Drunk, from Yekaterinburg, had traveled to Cuba to vacation with his family. Andréi went swimming, “he suffered a heart attack in the water and did not return to the shore,” a co-worker of the musician said on his social networks.
"It is shameful that Canadians turn a blind eye to the brutality of the Cuban dictatorship. The government, the tourism industry and Canadians in general continue to support the authoritarian regime in Havana," the Canadian senator said in March of last year Leo Housakos, of the Conservative Party.
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