MIAMI, United States. – The Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, intervened in the case of the Jarjour family, who received in Québec the body of a Russian citizen instead of their loved one, who died of a heart attack in Cuba last March 22nd.
“I have spoken with my Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, about Mr. Jarjour’s case,” Joly wrote on the social network X this Wednesday. “We share the utmost concern for the unimaginable situation faced by his relatives, with whom I spoke yesterday. Canada will continue to assist the Jarjour family until this situation is resolved,” she asserted.
For his part, the Cuban regime’s foreign minister responded to the Canadian minister’s post: “I spoke on the phone with Mélanie Joly about the regrettable incident related to the transfer of the body of a Canadian citizen who passed away in Cuba. Cuban authorities are investigating to clarify the incident. I conveyed my deepest condolences and apologies to the relatives and friends of the deceased,” he indicated.
The news that the widow and children of the Canadian tourist who died in Varadero had mistakenly received the body of a Russian citizen also deceased on the Island was reported last Sunday by CTV News Montreal.
Faraj Jarjour, a 68-year-old man, suffered a heart attack while he was in the ocean, on the second day of the trip to the Island with his wife and children.
The relatives told CTV News that, due to the absence of a doctor at the Meliá Varadero Hotel where they were staying, they had to wait hours for emergency services to transport the body from the tourist facility.
The family had to return to Canada while the body remained in Cuba, waiting for the death certificate and the rest of the necessary documents to repatriate the corpse.
However, once the family gathered the documentation and paid $10,000 for the transfer, instead of Jarjour’s body, they received that of a visibly younger Russian man, with tattoos and a full head of hair. “It was not my father’s body. It was someone else who looked nothing like him,” Miriam Jarjour, Faraj’s daughter, told the Canadian press.
According to the CTV News report, as of last Sunday, the family still did not know the whereabouts of the body. According to Miriam, an employee of the Canadian government indicated that it was not their responsibility, but that of Asistur, a Cuban medical insurance company that had delivered the wrong body. However, the family had never been in contact with the insurance company.
“We Canadians are not protected in Cuba,” the woman lamented. According to the report, the Urgel Bourgie funeral home in Montreal would be in contact with the Cuban company to resolve the error, while Global Affairs Canada, through an email sent to CTV News, confirmed that it was reviewing the case.
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