A Canadian man tried for months to get his sister out of war-torn Sudan. She died waiting

When the federal government launched a program in late February to reunite people in war-torn Sudan with their families in Canada, Seif Omran Mansour was ready.

The West Vancouver civil engineer got up at the crack of dawn and waited at his computer so he would be first in line to apply on behalf of his two sisters and their families.

Seven months later, Mansour is still waiting. And his eldest sister is dead.

“If the process was a little bit efficient and also fast, expedited, she would have been in Canada and she would have never been through this,” Mansour told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

“This is injustice, and that injustice and the sluggishness of this process, is costing life.”

Monsour, whose story was first reported by the Globe and Mail, is one of thousands of Sudanese Canadians who are wrestling with red tape trying to bring their families to safety through the federal reunification program.

Created to respond to the civil war, the program offers a permanent residence pathway for immediate family members of Canadian citizens and residents. 

The program reached its cap of 3,250 applications for 7,300 people, in June. But, so far, not a single person has arrived in Canada, or been approved to come.

Michelle Carbert  a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, told CBC the agency is reviewing applications “as quickly as possible.”

“It is important to note that permanent resident programs, such as the humanitarian pathway in Sudan, include multiple assessment steps before an application is approved,” Carbert said in an emailed statement.

“When responding to international crises, Canada tailors each response to meet the unique needs of those who require our support.”

Outside of the program, she says more than 2,600 people in Sudan have been approved to travel to Canada on a permanent or temporary basis since May 2023.

‘We are not treated equally’

Mansour’s sister, Ihsan Omran Mansour, was a 60-year-old veterinary researcher and mother of two from Khartoum, Sudan’s capital. She and her family have spent the war fleeing from city to city. 

She died on Aug. 16 from an asthma attack in the city of Port Sudan, because she was unable to access medical care. Sudan’s civil war has left its health-care system in shambles. 

Her two daughters, both in their early twenties, watched it happen.

“My nieces are devastated,” Mansour said. “It was very traumatic. They didn’t know what to do.”

Asked who he holds responsible, he first pointed a finger at Sudan’s warring factions. But he also blames Canada.

He says he had high hopes when he applied to bring his sisters here. After all, he’d watched on the news as tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees came to Canada after Russia invaded their country, with more expected by year’s end.

“We are not treated equally,” he said. 

Halifax’s Huwaida Medani agrees. She applied in February to bring her brother, his wife and their six children to Canada, and has barely heard a word from immigration officials about the status of their file. Her relatives have since fled to Saudi Arabia. 

Under the Canadian program, Sudanese Canadians must pay the cost of bringing their families to Canada, and take full financial responsibility for them when they arrive. 

So while Medani is saving up for her relatives’ eventual arrival, she’s also paying to support them in Saudi Arabia where, under the conditions of their one-year visa, the adults cannot work and the children cannot go to school. 

Despite all this, she says she’s one of the lucky ones. After all, her family is alive and safe with a roof over their heads.

“Not everybody had that kind of privilege,” she told CBC.

Immigration Minister Marc Miller said in March he expected the program’s applicants to start arriving in Canada by the end of the year. 

But Medani, who is in group chats with other Sudanese Canadians waiting on applications, says some people are being told they won’t be processed until 2027 or 2028. 

Others, like Mansour, say their relatives have died waiting.

“It’s just crazy,” she said. “No place in the whole globe is going through what Sudan is going through.”

Massive humanitarian crisis

Sudan has been at war since April 2023, when clashes broke out between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, crushing a planned transition to a civilian government.

The war, which passed 500 days last month, has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Sudan has more displaced people than any other country in the world, including war-torn Syria and Ukraine.

The United Nations estimates 25.6 million people — more than half of Sudan’s pre-war population — are at risk of acute hunger.

Aid organizations say a lack of dedicated funding, paired with collapsing infrastructure inside Sudan, has made it nearly impossible to reach those in need.

“People are silently dying, basically, in a mass scale,” Tuna Turkmen of Doctors Without Borders told As It Happens last month.

Mansour, meanwhile, is holding onto hope that he’ll be reunited with his grieving nieces. He had to relaunch their applications, as they were previously listed as dependents of their mother. 

His sister, he says, was a “dedicated professional,” a “loving mother” and a “hardworking lady.”

“She’s very, very, very loved by everybody around her, her colleagues, her family, daughters. And we miss her. We miss her a lot,” he said.

“We need to pressure the government of Canada. We need to shed the lights on what’s going on in Sudan.”