Sunday will mark the three-year anniversary of the downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, and for Surrey’s Shahrokh Ferdowsi the ache continues to be uncooked.

On Jan. 8, 2020, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot the aircraft down shortly after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 passengers and crew aboard.

Fifty-five Canadian residents and 30 everlasting residents died within the catastrophe, together with Ferdowsi’s cousin, Dr. Farhad Niknam, a Toronto dentist returning residence from a Christmas go to along with his spouse and youngsters in Iran.

“I actually miss him, I miss his voice, I miss his presence, I want he was right here,” Ferdowsi instructed World Information by means of tears.

“The one factor that they discovered of his belongings was a pouch he had round his waist and a photograph album.”

2:06
Demonstrators demand justice for victims of Flight PS752 forward of 3-year anniversary

The picture album was turned to a web page with photos of Niknam’s kids.

The ultimate report from Iran’s civil aviation physique blamed “human error” for the incident claiming a missile operator misidentified the airliner as a “hostile goal” amid rising tensions with the U.S., and fired with out getting approval from a superior — a report criticized sufferer’s households worldwide.

The aircraft was destroyed after being struck by two missiles fired 30 seconds aside.

Ferdowsi stated he thinks usually about what the ultimate moments of his good friend’s life have been like, within the 30 seconds between these two impacts.

“My guess is the final second of his life he opened up the album and was trying on the photographs figuring out that he was going to die,” Ferdowsi stated.

Among the many Canadian victims have been docs, dentists, teachers, a five-year-old little one and a newlywed couple.

“Plus, one of many different passengers was 5 months pregnant,” Ferdowsi stated.

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Strain mounting on Iran over Flight PS752

Supporters, buddies and households of the victims say there has but to be justice or accountability for Iran over the tragedy, or an affordable rationalization of why the civilian plane was focused.

Canada, the UK, Sweden and Ukraine — the 4 nations accounting for almost all of the victims, have joined collectively right into a coordination group looking for to carry Iran to account for the incident.

Final month, they collectively despatched a diplomatic notice to Iran, demanding it participate in arbitration below the phrases of the 1971 Montreal Conference, a world treaty Iran has additionally signed.

That treaty requires states to stop and punish offences in opposition to civil aviation. If the nations can’t settle the dispute inside six months, Iran will be prosecuted within the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice.

Three years later, Iran now finds itself on the centre of one other human rights disaster, accused of brutalizing and killing a whole bunch of civilians amid persistent anti-government protests, spurred by the dying of 22-year-old Masha Amini

“I actually really feel like we’re a part of a river, we’re simply swimming on this river, that simply each day we add to it, the victims simply maintain coming in, it’s simply getting gibber and greater,” Fedowsi stated.

“And now my concern is that this river goes to show into an ocean quickly. There are simply so many victims, like my cousins, which have been harm by the system.”

Households of the victims of Ukraine Airways Flight PS752 will maintain rallies in additional than 100 cities on Sunday to mark the third anniversary of the aircraft’s downing.

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