A Canadian woman made an emotional return home to Toronto on Saturday after being stranded in Kenya since being denied exit in May because authorities alleged she was using someone else’s passport.
Overjoyed to return home after the three-month ordeal she called a “nightmare” finally came to an end, Suaad Haji Mohamud hugged her 12-year-old son tightly after arriving at the airport. She was only allowed to travel after DNA tests showing she was indeed Mohamed Hussein’s mother, proving her identity.
Mohamud’s ordeal began when she traveled to Kenya to visit her mother. When she sought to board a plane to return to Canada in May, Kenyan immigration officials arrested and detained her, accusing her of identity fraud because her lips appeared different than those on the photograph in her four-year-old passport.
After holding her for eight days, Kenyan authorities freed the 31-year-old woman on bail.
“Really it is a bad experience. I have never been in jail, even in my own country,” she said on Wednesday.
Her Kenyan lawyer, Lucas Naikuni, will file a complaint against the Kenyan and Canadian governments, and against KLM airlines, CBC public TV reported.
Mohamud’s case has sparked a debate in Canada, where media have highlighted several cases of Canadian citizens who were held or faced difficulties abroad without Ottawa stepping in to help.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has vowed to launch an investigation into the Canada Border Services Agency handled Mohamud’s case.
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
RSS