Exile in Erbil: Ottawa accused of abandoning Canadian woman stranded in Iraq

LONDON, U.K. -

On June 26, 2021, a young woman walked out of the Roj detention camp in northeastern Syria, confident that in a few days, she would be reunited with her daughter in Canada.

The child had been rescued from the same miserable prison just months earlier, a painful separation from her mother, organized by a former American diplomat who had time, money and the right connections to make it happen.

“He saved my life, he saved my daughter’s life,” the woman told me from the Iraqi city of Erbil, where she’s been marooned, waiting for Canada to issue her emergency travel papers, a process that should take days, not months.

She’s been living in a hotel, with an expired Iraqi visa, afraid she’ll be picked up and sent back to Syria. Under a court ruling, meant to protect her safety, she can only be identified by her initials, SA.

“I’m trying to preserve my mental health,” she told me in her first extensive interview with Canadian media. “I want to be in a good state of mind when I see my daughter again.”

This is no ordinary case of a Canadian traveller stranded in a foreign country without a passport. A court challenge, under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, has accused the government of deliberately delaying assistance as punishment for her past involvement with ISIS.

The woman’s lawyer in Ottawa, Paul Champ, calls it forced exile.

“What Canada is doing right now is unconscionable, a forced exile as a punishment, without any charge or trial, is a complete violation of our human rights.”

SA’s family immigrated to Canada from Somalia in 1993. She won’t talk about why she travelled to Syria two decades later, or what she did there. A sworn affidavit offers the only hints of what happened during her time with ISIS.

“While in Syria, there were several times that I tried to leave, but I was not allowed to do so. I was moved around numerous times. I was not allowed to speak to my family or friends. My phone was taken away. I was completely isolated from the outside world.”

Her daughter was born in 2016, and when ISIS was defeated, they ended up in a Kurdish detention camp, to be essentially abandoned by Canada.

“The camp was crowded and chaotic when I arrived,” she wrote in her affidavit. “The water quality was terrible and my daughter and I were always getting sick. There were gunshots and screams almost every night.”

She described being held in solitary confinement for a month, and earlier, being strip-searched by a male Kurdish soldier. ‘The search was more like a sexual assault,” she wrote, “and I was traumatized.”

She was moved to a different camp, Roj, and that’s where her story becomes intriguing. She had heard about a retired American diplomat by the name of Peter Galbraith, who was helping women and children get out of Roj, using his deep personal ties to the Kurds.

It was through Galbraith she became an informant for the FBI, a decision that put her at great personal risk, but opened up the possibility of freedom, and a return to Canada.

“He asked me if I was willing to co-operate,” she said in our interview. “I helped them in the things they asked me about, and that led to them helping me and my daughter leave the camp.”

Galbraith escorted her from northeastern Syria to Erbil, where she could make contact with Canadian officials, fully expecting she would only be there a few days. When days turned into weeks and months, he continued to support her financially.

Galbraith has both American and Canadian citizenship, and describes himself as an author, academic, policy adviser, commentator, ex-politician, international relations consultant, and former American diplomat.

In his own sworn affidavit, he said SA “provided extensive information to the FBI both about ISIS suspects and about kidnapped American children.” Over time, he wrote, the FBI came to believe she should be extracted from the camp “as a reward for her assistance.”

He was generally dismissive of Canada’s delay in issuing emergency travel papers. “I never imagined that she would be stranded there by the Canadian government for a period of months.”

Nor did her Canadian lawyer.

“They did promise that if she got out and got to a Canadian embassy or a Canadian consulate, they would help her return to Canada. But what we know now is those excuses are lies.”

SA says Canada was aware she was an informant for the FBI, and five RCMP officers recently came to Erbil to interview her. She believes they were conducting a threat assessment.

“I’ve done everything I can to prove that I’m not a risk, I’m not a threat,” she said. “If I was dangerous or I was planning to go anywhere or do anything, I wouldn't have been sitting here in my hotel room for four months waiting to go back.”

And on the likelihood of facing possible terrorism charges once she is allowed to return to Canada:

“I know that it's a fair system. I know that it’s a good peaceful country and I'm not taking things personally. I just understand that there's a reason for the way a lot of this is being handled.”

Global Affairs Canada refused to comment, now that her case is before the courts, which is often a convenient way to avoid answering difficult questions.

And one of the questions that went unanswered: When will Canada issue her travel papers?