Family Lucky To Be Alive After Dangerous Taxi Ride Out Of Lebanon
Posted July 23, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Rola Chadi, her mother and 10-year-old brother were visiting relatives in southern Lebanon when they found themselves in the middle of a war zone. As Israeli air strikes pounded the region, the family knew they had to get out and fast.
The Chadis called the Canadian Embassy looking for help, but officials said the best thing to do was to stay put. The family knew they’d be in great danger if they stayed, so they paid a taxi driver nearly $1,000 to take them to safety out of the country.
The journey through the mountains and out of Lebanon was a frightening one with bombs going off nearby along the way.
“We hear this bomb … it was crazy. The car lifted up and hit back down on the road,” Rola Chadi explained.
Her young brother Omar said the fear he experienced during the dangerous journey was almost too much to bear.
“When they hit 200 metres away from us I couldn’t breathe or anything,” he said. “I couldn’t say anything, and I felt … like I was going to die.”
They eventually arrived in Damascus, Syria where they caught a flight back to Canada. While the Chadis are happy to be back home, those feelings of relief are mixed with frustration and anger over the Canadian government’s reaction to the crisis facing its citizens in the war-torn region.
“I think they should have acted quicker. I mean, I don’t understand what took so long,” Rola said. “I mean Lebanon is the smallest Arab country in the world, so it couldn’t be that hard.”
There are approximately 30,000 Canadians left in Lebanon and another flight of evacuees is due to land Sunday night in Montreal.
