An Alberta woman is scared for her life in Peru as the death toll rises and the health-care system collapses around her.
A 75-year-old pensioner from Nova Scotia is stranded alone on the top of a mountain in a tiny village in Central America, with no way out.
A Montreal woman is living in a $7-a-day hotel room in the mountains of locked-down Nepal and told the local hospital ran out of necessities to help those with COVID-19.
They are the outliers: the last 10 per cent of Canadians stranded abroad who want to come home during a deadly, worldwide pandemic. But the Canadian government may not be able to repatriate them all because of the complexity of their cases.
“It’s a possible death sentence for a lot of Canadian citizens and residents in Peru,” Ana Nehring, the Alberta woman, told CBC News from Lima. “We need to be rescued. We need to get out of here.”
Ottawa is down to its final push to retrieve Canadians, with over 40,681 already repatriated from 107 countries on 378 flights since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
But the federal government said these last cases are often the most difficult and unusual. In some countries, there aren’t enough Canadians to send an entire plane. In others, repatriation flights are barred from entering. Instead, consular services is helping some citizens hunker down until countries reopen.
But some of those stranded say they are in precarious situations and want Canada to find a way to get them home quickly.
“We are working to help as many Canadians as possible return home, but some may remain outside the country for an indeterminate period,” Angela Savard, a spokesperson with Global Affairs, said in a statement to CBC News.
Stuck in Peru: Ana Nehring, Lise Blais
Nehring flew to Peru on March 3 to rush to her mother’s side after she suffered a stroke. She’s an only child and needed to find her mother a long-term care facility to live in.
But two weeks later, Peru entered a lockdown that closed its borders to international travel. It’s been three months and Nehring is still stuck in Lima.
She says the country is struggling to control its outbreak and all she wants to do is get home to St. Albert, Alta.
Doctors and nurses attend to COVID-19 patients inside the intensive care unit at the Guillermo Almenara hospital in Lima on May 22. Despite strict measures to control the virus, this South American nation of 32 million has become one of the countries worst hit by the disease. (Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press)
According to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, Peru has more than 160,000 confirmed cases, tenth-most in the world, with more than 4,500 deaths.
“We need more help,” Nehring said. “I’m scared. We should not be here. The numbers are growing very rapidly….There are a lot of people dying.”
She tried to land a spot on one of Canada’s nine repatriation flights out, but all the seats were taken. Global Affairs told CBC News that it brought more than 2,650 citizens back to Canada on those planes. But it ended the efforts in mid-April because the Peruvian government stopped allowing repatriation flights into the country.
Checkpoints are set up in Lima, Peru, where dozens of Canadians say they are stuck waiting for flights out of the country. (Submitted by Ana Nehring)
Nehring wants the government to send a military aircraft to pick up a group of roughly 200 Canadians, according to a Facebook group’s tally, who want to leave Peru. She says the streets are filled with military and police. She’s haunted by seeing a dead body on the ground on the way to the grocery store, but can’t say for sure if it was related to COVID-19.
Lise Blais is also in Lima and worried about catching COVID-19 as the number of cases climb. She’s trying to get home to Montreal and says she’s been stuck inside the same four walls since March 16. Blais wants to get back home to her son and grandchildren.
“Life is very difficult,” said Blais. I’m really scared to death.
“It’s so stressful. I’m losing my appetite. I don’t sleep well. It’s like a permanent nightmare. Living and waiting, it’s really terrible. Enough to make stomach ulcers.”
WATCH | Lise Blais, stranded in Peru, says, ‘The waiting is killing me’
Lise Blais says can’t eat or sleep because she’s stressed about catching COVID-19 and wants the Canadian government to help get her home to Montreal. 0:42
Stranded in Costa Rica: Maxine Bruce
Maxine Bruce is a 75-year-old Canadian snowbird stuck in Costa Rica. She’s been hauling her groceries two kilometres up a mountain, because she won’t get in a taxi due to the pandemic. She’s walking even further to try to scour the nearby village of Santa Maria de Dota for supplies and medications she’s run out of.
Maxine Bruce is stuck in the mountains in Costa Rica after her Air Canada flight to Canada was cancelled during the pandemic. (CBC)
Bruce says she’s trying to get home to the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia to help her brother who has early onset dementia. But for some reason, she says, Global Affairs Canada thinks she’s in another Central American country. She says the government has been sending her a “wealth of information applicable to Panama.”
The Canadian government has been “useless,” she said.
“We’re the forgotten Canadians stranded in these places. Basically they said it was my choice to travel so it’s down to me to get myself out of this mess.”
Trying to get out of Ecuador: David Robinson
David Robinson was told the only flights out of Ecuador are through the U.S. Embassy, and they are expected to end soon. (Submitted by David Robinson)
David Robinson has spent the past year living on the ocean in Manta, Ecuador, as he had a medical procedure done to his foot. Now he wants to “get the hell out of Dodge,” but said Canada’s consular services told him the only way out is by a U.S.-chartered flight. Canada warned that even the American flights were ending soon.
He’s upset he was told to contact the U.S. Embassy for help.
“It’s maddening,” he said. “It’s literally disgusting. I’ve been paying taxes since I’ve been 15 and this is what they’re doing to me now: saying ‘whatever.'”
Hunkering down in Nepal: Catherine Breton
Catherine Breton is in a small village in Nepal with other tourists also stranded abroad due to the pandemic. (Catherine Breton/Facebook)
Catherine Breton has hunkered down in a cheap hotel with a small group of German and British tourists who are also stranded. She’s in Bandipur, a small village in the mountains in Nepal about an hour walk from a main road or a 12-hour bus ride from the capital, Kathmandu.
She was on a spiritual journey to study Buddhism when the pandemic hit. Breton said she couldn’t afford $4,000 for a spot on an earlier repatriation flight, so she waited thinking there would be other options. She learned the hard way that there aren’t.
“I’m getting scared,” she said. “There’s more and more cases.”
Nepal has more than 1,500 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The Canadian government offers a $5,000 emergency loan to people stranded abroad for “life-sustaining needs.” Robinson said she’s struggled to get out of debt before and had promised herself she’d never do it again, but realizes now she has no other choice but to take the money.
The local hospital told her they do not have ventilators and have run out of supplies needed to treat people with COVID-19. She says a Facebook group she’s part of lists more than 70 Canadians in Nepal who want to travel home. Yet she’s been told by consular support in India there aren’t enough people for a repatriation flight.
“I just don’t understand that,” she said. “They have the possibility to do it; I don’t know why they don’t.”
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Rookie Wyatt Langford homered, doubled twice and became the first Texas player this season to reach base five times, struggling Jonah Heim delivered a two-run single to break a sixth-inning tie and the Rangers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 13-8 on Tuesday night.
Leody Taveras also had a homer among his three hits for the Rangers.
Langford, who also walked twice, has 12 homers and 25 doubles this season. He is hitting .345 in September.
“I think it’s really important to finish on a strong note,” Langford said. “I’m just going to keep trying to do that.”
Heim was 1-for-34 in September before he lined a single to right field off Tommy Nance (0-2) to score Adolis García and Nathaniel Lowe, giving Texas a 9-7 lead. Heim went to the plate hitting .212 with 53 RBIs after being voted an All-Star starter last season with a career-best 95 RBIs. He added a double in the eighth ahead of Taveras’ homer during a three-run inning.
Texas had 13 hits and left 13 men on. It was the Rangers’ highest-scoring game since a 15-8 win at Oakland on May 7.
Matt Festa (5-1) pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings to earn the win, giving him a 5-0 record in 13 appearances with the Rangers after being granted free agency by the New York Mets on July 7.
Nathan Eovaldi, a star of Texas’ 2023 run to the franchise’s first World Series championship, had his worst start of the year in what could have been his final home start with the Rangers. Eovaldi, who will be a free agent next season, allowed 11 hits (the most of his two seasons with Texas) and seven runs (tied for the most).
“I felt like early in the game they just had a few hits that found the holes, a few first-pitch base hits,” said Eovaldi, who is vested for a $20 million player option with Texas for 2025. “I think at the end of the day I just need to do a better job of executing my pitches.”
Eovaldi took a 7-3 lead into the fifth inning after the Rangers scored five unearned runs in the fourth. The Jays then scored four runs to knock out Eovaldi after 4 2/3 innings.
Six of the seven runs scored against Toronto starter Chris Bassitt in 3 2/3 innings were unearned. Bassitt had a throwing error during Texas’ two-run third inning.
“We didn’t help ourselves defensively, taking care of the ball to secure some outs,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said.
The Blue Jays’ Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had a double and two singles, his most hits in a game since having four on Sept. 3. Guerrero is hitting .384 since the All-Star break.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Blue Jays: SS Bo Bichette (calf) was activated and played for the first time since July 19, going 2 for 5 with an RBI. … OF Daulton Varsho (shoulder) was placed on the 10-day injured list and will have rotator cuff surgery … INF Will Wagner (knee inflammation) was placed on the 60-day list.
UP NEXT
Rangers: LHP Chad Bradford (5-3, 3.97 ERA) will pitch Wednesday night’s game on extended five days’ rest after allowing career highs in hits (nine), runs (eight) and home runs (three) in 3 2/3 innings losing at Arizona on Sept. 14.
Blue Jays: RHP Bowden Francis (8-4, 3.50) has had two no-hitters get away in the ninth inning this season, including in his previous start against the New York Mets on Sept. 11. Francis is the first major-leaguer to have that happen since Rangers Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan in 1989.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Billie Jean King will become the first individual female athlete to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey announced Tuesday that their bipartisan legislation had passed the House of Representatives and would be sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.
The bill to honor King, the tennis Hall of Famer and activist, had already passed unanimously in the Senate.
Sherrill, a Democrat, said in a statement that King’s “lifetime of advocacy and hard work changed the landscape for women and girls on the court, in the classroom, and the workplace.”
The bill was introduced last September on the 50th anniversary of King’s victory over Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes,” still the most-watched tennis match of all-time. The medal, awarded by Congress for distinguished achievements and contributions to society, has previously been given to athletes including baseball players Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, and golfers Jack Nicklaus, Byron Nelson and Arnold Palmer.
King had already been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Fitzpatrick, a Republican, says she has “broken barriers, led uncharted paths, and inspired countless people to stand proudly with courage and conviction in the fight for what is right.”
SURREY, B.C. – Premier David Eby says new account control measures for young Instagram users introduced Tuesday by social media giant Meta are the “minimum” expected of tech companies to keep kids safe online.
The parent company of Instagram says users in Canada and elsewhere under 18 will have their accounts set to private by default starting Tuesday, restricting who can send messages, among other parental controls and settings.
Speaking at an unrelated event Tuesday, Eby says the province began talks with social media companies after threatening legislation that would put big tech companies on the hook for “significant potential damages” if they were found negligent in failing to keep kids safe from online predators.
Eby says the case of Carson Cleland, a 12-year-old from Prince George, B.C., who took his own life last year after being targeted by a predator on Snapchat, was “horrific and totally preventable.”
He says social media apps are “nothing special,” and should be held to the same child safety standards as anyone who operates a place that invites young people, whether it’s an amusement park, a playground or an online platform.
In a progress report released Tuesday about the province’s engagement with big tech companies including Google, Meta, TikTok, Spapchat and X, formerly known as Twitter, the provincial government says the companies are implementing changes, including a “trusted flagger” option to quickly remove intimate images.
— With files from The Associated Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024
