TORONTO -- University of Toronto students joined more than a dozen Canadian universities who held moments of silence in honour of community members killed when a plane crashed in Iran last week.
Eight of the 176 people who lost their lives on Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 were associated with the school. Six of them were students.
Inside a first year computer science class at the Myhal Centre, hundreds of students chose to stand as a sign of respect. As they observed the moment silently, the names of the eight victims were projected on to the wall.
“You see the names and you see that even the two people with the same last name, you can tell that they’re probably siblings, and it’s really sad to know that a family lost two kids instead of just one,” David Ribeiro said.
The names were that of Mohammad and Zeynab Asadi Lari. Both of the students were returning to Canada from Iran when the plane was shot down.
For those who knew them, it’s been a very difficult week.
“I think the first few days were just disbelief and shock.” said Nishila Mehta, the president of the U of T Medical Society. “You never think something like this is going to happen to you, or somebody that you know.”
Mohammad was a second-year MD/PhD student in the Faculty of Medicine, Zeynab was a fourth-year bachelor of science student at the Mississauga campus.
Mehta says there are constant reminders of the loss at the university.
“It’s hard because the small reminders of the person, be it their Facebook page or seeing their picture around, or even walking in to class and knowing that’s exactly where the person used to sit, all of these things, it just hits over and over again.”
The University of Toronto has been the site of a number of vigils and memorials over the past week. On Wednesday, the university announced the creation of the “Iranian Student Memorial Scholarship Fund,” which will provide needs-based scholarships to international students from Iran or students who are in Iranian studies.
Dr. Rahim Rezaie, a researcher at the university, said he first got the idea after learning how many of the victims had been associated with both this and other universities.
“My mind sort of went … what can we do to make a positive story out of this?”
In a news release, the university says all donations to the fund will be matched by the school.
Rezaie hopes the fund will create a positive legacy in honour of the victims of tragedy.
“I think part of what has captivated us, particularly the Iranian Canadian community of which I am part of, is that their stories are really our stories. Many of them went through the same kind of experience, and I think that has resonated with us from many different angles.”
