On January 8, 2020, a Ukrainian Airlines passenger aircraft was shot down over Tehran by two missiles launched by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The tragedy, which Iran still insists was the result of "human error", claimed the lives of all 176 people onboard and pitched their families and loved ones into a living nightmare - one they are still living through today.
Among the innocent civilians on Flight 752 were 82 Iranian citizens, 63 Canadians,11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, seven Afghans, three Britons and three Germans. They included doctors, students, athletes, activists and environmentalists: individuals pursuing their own dreams and ambitions both inside and outside Iran, and with bright futures ahead of them.
An international investigation into the incident is underway, spearheaded by Canada, France and Ukraine. But in the meantime, the devastated families of the PS752 passengers are still in limbo. Bereft of either justice or accountability for the disaster that shattered their lives, some of these individuals are now being represented by the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims, which has published a series of heart-rending personal letters and testimonies to honor those who were killed on January 8.
IranWire is supporting the Association's fight for justice by translating these final tributes into English and publishing them on our pages. We hope that through these efforts, the remarkable lives and aspirations of those aboard Flight 752 will not be forgotten.
Annie and I Were Each Other’s Stories
For Annie (Hadis) Hayatdavoudi, a PS752 Passenger
By Zahra Abdi
My sister Annie was three years younger than me. We all turn into others in one way or another. One could turn into a photo frame whose photo has been lost, longing after a smile that is no more, desiring a lock of hair that is no longer there, lost after the tale of a girl who, on the 1001st night, left the scene. I still look to the skies for the flight that took Annie away.
We all turn into what we have lost. I have turned into a story lost in the winds. The fairy of this tale left the story right then, on the 1001st night.
In the story that remains, I am a brother who cries and looks everywhere in every story to find his sister. She is nowhere to be found.
I turn to the pages of the story before she left. Annie was laughing and dancing in every page. My sister and I wrote together, read together, grew up together, line by line.
Annie was full of energy and could never remain in one place. She ran through the story and pulled everyone along behind her. She would run so fast that she was always the first to school. Wherever she wanted to study, they wanted her. Everybody wants a girl whose hair makes the breeze dance. Everybody wants a girl whose laughter makes walls collapse. Her teachers and professors loved her dearly.
Two years ago, Annie told me: “Dear Ehsan, I am both happy and sad.”
“Why, my sister?”
“Western University in Canada has given me an offer. But how can we leave each other?”
“Wherever you are in the world, so long as you laugh like this, you are with me. I was with you from the first story.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She left me and went to Canada. She gave life to stories there too. Before long, she was the chief protagonist of the best story of all, and right at the height of it, at the point that every story strives to reach, she fell in love.
“Ehsan, I feel something has happened to my heart. It is sometimes fast, sometimes slow. I think I love someone.”
My sister had met someone at a seminar and turned this into a love story.
Annie knew how to build a story-in-a-story. She asked me:
“Ehsan, isn't love at first sight wrong?”
“My dear Annie, if love is not there at first sight, it is not love at all. It is calculation. Do you remember when we were kids? When the skies thundered and you were scared?”
“I remember, my brother.”
“Do you remember we saw the wild sight of lightning from behind the windows and you spoke of the terrifying sound that was about to come?”
“I remember.”
“We looked at the sky together. We saw the lightning and all the skies were alight.”
“I remember, Ehsan. You said I wouldn't be scared if I looked at it and if I knew where it came from.”
“You will come back to Iran and we we'll figure out the rest of the story together.”
Annie, I wish the story had endid with that final sentence. I wish someone had closed the book and you hadn’t come back.
You had only seen 27 springs in your life. You were all my stories, my 1001 Nights.
You said: “My brother, I have found a house for when you come.”
She had plans for all the days of my imagined trip to Canada. That damned missile hit all of her dreams.
Annie, you are not around anymore and to bear this chapter of the story is harder than you think. The story is now full of not coming, not seeing, not staying, not kissing, not hugging.
The night before you left, you said: “My friends asked me to postpone my ticket. ‘We’ll all pitch in,’ they said.”
“That would be great.”
But you didn't stay. People said there might be a war. You said: “Let me take my life and go. You will come soon to join me.”
It was midnight when you decided to rush to catch the plane. Now all of the world's songs sing in unison: “Shame on fate when it makes the bad worse; when your innocent tears come far too soon.”
“I won’t say goodbye because you’ll be with me in less than a month,” you said at the airport.
I wish time could turn back. To when we were kids. To when I cut all your hair off and your cried. Or to that day when you were thirsty and I gave you medical alcohol by mistake. You coughed and couldn’t breathe. I was dying of fear. You caught your breath, and you laughed. I was shocked and couldn’t move, but you laughed so much that my laughter came too. I wish the story had finished right there, in the midst of our tears and laughter. I wish the story ended without you leaving.
Everyone becomes the person they’ve lost. I have become a wave that resembles your hair. I crash against the shores of my loneliness. You had nothing to do with politics but the dirty men of politics had something to do with everybody. They didn’t let you reach your 28th year. They didn’t let you experience love. We tried so hard to separate our story from their darkness, but they didn’t let us have our own story. They shot our story down. They separated sisters from brothers, fathers from sons and daughters, lovers from beloveds. Their job is to force stories to remain unfinished. My dear Annie, when I say that the unfinished flight crashes inside me every day, they don’t understand the anxiety I speak of. When I speak of the void you left, of the hole I can feel in my heart, they don’t understand me. You and I were each other’s stories. Annie, come back to the story and don’t let it become a void.
Your brother, Ehsan.
Translator: Arash Azizi
Editor: Hannah Somerville
visit the accountability section
In this section of Iran Wire, you can contact the officials and launch your campaign for various problems
comments