LAVAL, Quebec– A family in Quebec is searching for answers after discovering that their father’s remains did not arrive in Canada from Cuba, where he died while on vacation, but instead received the remains of another man.
Faraj Allah Jarjour’s funeral was scheduled for Sunday and Monday. Instead, his daughter Miriam Jarjour had been frantically calling and emailing as many officials as she could, trying to find his body.
“So far we have no answers,” Jarjour said. “Where is my father?”
Jarjour said she was swimming with her 68-year-old father in the ocean near Varadero, Cuba, during a family vacation on March 22 when he suddenly suffered a heart attack and died.
Since there were no medical facilities, his body was covered and left on a beach chair in the sun for more than eight hours until a car arrived to take him to Havana, Jarjour said.
After that, it’s unclear what happened.
Jarjour said he followed instructions given to him by the Canadian consulate and paid 10,000 Canadian dollars (7,300 US dollars) to have the body returned to his family.
However, the coffin that arrived late last week contained the body of a Russian man who was at least 20 years younger than Jarjour’s father. Unlike his father, the body also had a full head of hair and tattoos.
Jarjour said the stranger’s body was sent to her country, but she and her family don’t know where her father is.
When Jarjour contacted Canadian consular authorities in Cuba, they blamed the company on the island coordinating the return of the remains. Since then, he says he has been emailing other government officials, including his member of Parliament, who agreed to contact Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly.
“I’m honestly devastated,” Jarjour said. “Until now we have no answers. We were waiting. “I do not know what to tell you”.
Jarjour described his father as an active man who did not smoke or drink. The Syrian-born family man “was always smiling,” he said.
The ordeal left her mother exhausted, Jarjour said. She and her brother are fighting her own grief while trying to get answers from authorities who seem to deny her responsibility.
So far, the family has spent C$25,000 (US$18,248), including C$15,000 (US$10,950) for funeral services that have been put on hold.
Global Affairs Canada said in an email that consular officials are working with Cuban authorities and the family to resolve the issue.
But Jarjour doesn’t feel like he’s getting the answers he needs and hopes Joly will personally intervene to put pressure on Cuban authorities.
“What I want is for someone to help me find my father,” he said.