Newsmakers 2020: Ryan Pourjam and the tragedy that devastated Ottawa’s Iranian community – Ottawa Citizen

Below, one of our 10 newsmakers: Ryan Pourjam

With just 265 words, 13-year-old Ryan Pourjam laid bare the human tragedy of the downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752.

In a grey sweater and blue jeans, Ryan stood before a gathering of more than 200 mourners at Carleton University in the memory of his dad, Mansour Pourjam, one of 176 people who died in the crash, just the week before.

It happened at a time when the world was on edge. Iran was on high alert after having launched a missile attack on American bases in Iraq in retaliation for a U.S. drone strike on Jan. 3 that had killed prominent Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. In the tense hours that followed, Irans Revolutionary Guard mistook the Boeing 737, which had taken off from Tehran airport just minutes before, for an incoming American cruise missile. It launched two surface-to air-missiles at the defenceless airliner.

The innocents aboard Flight PS752 were collateral damage in the realpolitik of Mideast conflict.

Mansour was one of 57 Canadians, eight of them from Ottawa, who lost their lives in the Jan. 8 crash.

Also killed were Alireza Pey, CEO and founder of Kanata-based MessageHopper; Roja Azadian, who was travelling alone after her husband learned at Tehran airport that his ticket had been cancelled; architect Fereshteh Maleki Dizaje, whowas returning from celebrating her daughters wedding in Tehran; and Fareed Arasteh, a Carleton University PhD student in molecular genetics who had been married in Tehran only days before. A trio of uOttawa students were also aboard the doomed flight:Alma Oladi, a PhD student in mathematics with a specialty in genomics statistics; Saeed Kashani, a PhD student in chemistry; and Mehraban Badiei, a first-year student in health sciences.

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Newsmakers 2020: Ryan Pourjam and the tragedy that devastated Ottawa's Iranian community - Ottawa Citizen