The bodies of two Canadian accountants killed in a suicide bombing attack at a restaurant in Kabul are scheduled to return to Canadian soil Wednesday night at CFB Trenton in Ontario.
Martin Glazer, 43, of Gatineau, Que., and Peter McSheffrey, 49, of Ottawa, both worked for the Quebec accounting firm Samson & Associates. They were killed on Friday when a Taliban suicide bomber and two gunmen attacked La Taverna du Liban, a restaurant popular with foreign nationals in Afghanistan’s capital.
Pierre Samson of Samson & Associates said the two employees, who were in Afghanistan auditing work for the Canadian International Development Agency, were having dinner at the restaurant when the attack occurred.
Samson said his company has been working for 36 hours straight to repatriate the bodies of the two men.
“Let’s repatriate both of them, so the family can put this behind them and do their mourning,” he told CTV Ottawa.
Anger over the violence prompted hundreds of Afghan protestors to march Sunday outside the restaurant, denouncing terrorism and the killing of civilians.
A total of 21 people were killed, including 13 foreigners and eight Afghans. Three United Nations staff and the International Monetary Fund’s representative in Afghanistan were among the victims.
“He’s going to leave a big hole in all of our lives,” McSheffrey’s brother Robert told CTV Ottawa.
He said his brother was aware of the risks in Afghanistan and had confided in his wife that he was “a little nervous” about going there.
McSheffrey leaves behind his wife Lee-Ann, and their two daughters, Paige, 15, and Darcy, 17.
He also volunteered for the charitable organization SOS Children’s Villages, where he dedicated hundreds of hours of volunteer time over seven years, “attending meetings and answering the phone when I would call,” said the organization’s president and CEO Boyd McBride.
In a statement, Glazer’s family said he took pride in his work, “contributing to Canada’s efforts to bring about peace and security in Afghanistan by helping to ensure that development assistance money went to those it was intended to assist.”
Glazer’s stepbrother Claude Panneton wrote on Facebook: “I’m grateful to have known you, my brother. And I will miss you terribly. Rest in peace.”
Glazer had been to Afghanistan before, but it was McSheffrey’s first trip to the war-torn country. Samson said both men had received training prior to the trip.
In a statement Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said “Canada condemns in the strongest possible terms the targeted, cowardly terrorist attack.”
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was retaliation against an Afghan military operation earlier in the week that targeted insurgents in Parwan province.
"The target of the attack was a restaurant frequented by high-ranking foreigners," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an emailed statement to the Associated Press. He said the attack targeted a place "where the invaders used to dine with booze and liquor in the plenty."
With files from CTV Ottawa, The Canadian Press and The Associated Press
