An Iranian refugee who spent 10 months living in Moscow's international airport with her two children is grateful to finally arrive in Canada.

Zahra Kamalfar arrived in Vancouver late Thursday. Apparently overcome by emotion, she collapsed on her way out.

"Now I see freedom," a visibly shaken Zahra Kamalfar told reporters. "I can see again the sky, the moon, the sun."

Before leaving, she reportedly had to face one more obstacle: the RCMP questioned her about an allegation she had smoked on her flight. The RCMP did not name Kamalfar specifically, and released her without charges.

Two years ago, Kamalfar and her husband were arrested in a demonstration in Tehran against the Iranian government. They were placed in jail. Upon her release, Kamalfar was told that her husband had been executed. That's when she decided to flee.

She wanted to head for Canada via Russia and Europe, but was arrested during a stopover in Germany and sent back to Moscow.

Russian authorities attempted to deport her and her two children, Davood and Anna, say her supporters.

"The Russians wanted to deport the family back to Iran, but they didn't have any ID documents or travel documents, so they couldn't," Kamalfar's lawyer Negar Azmudeh told Canada AM Friday.

"And as a pressure tactic on Zahra and her children to sign applications for travel documents, they had first confined them to a hotel room. And then to increase the pressure, they moved them to the public area of the transit lounge, where they were for the past 10 months."

Kamalfar sought refugee status from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She was initially turned down but, on appeal, her lawyers succeeded, after presenting new information.

While her case was under review last summer, she was prevented from leaving the Moscow airport. She lived there with her children for 10 months, sleeping on the floor, bathing in public washrooms and receiving food donated from the Russian Aeroflot airline.

The UNHCR made numerous requests to the Russian government to house the family while the case was under review but no action was taken. A Russian migration official confirmed to CTV News that it was because, contrary to local law, she failed to file for refugee status within 24 hours of landing in Russia.

"The situation that they were in was both humiliating and very, very difficult," Azmudeh said.

"They were roughed up by the airport authorities from time to time. And just a couple of weeks ago, Zahra fell ill and her son was suffering from an eye infection and there was no medical intervention. So overall, it was very, very difficult."

A lobbying effort led by the International Federation of Iranian Refugees finally produced results when, this week, the Canadian government agreed to accept the family as legitimate refugees.

"We are all extremely grateful to the Canadian public and the Canadian authorities for finally pushing things through," Azmudeh said.

Kamalfar reportedly plans to live in Vancouver, already home to about 30,000 Iranians.

The situation was similar to the case of another Iranian, Mehran Karimi Nasseri, who lived at the international airport in Paris from 1988 to 2006 after his refugee status papers were stolen.

With files from The Canadian Press