Family drowned in Akwesasne — Two years later, loved ones face a broken asylum system for Roma

The death of four members of a Roma family — a couple and their children — sent shockwaves through the community on March 29, 2023. The Iordaches drowned while attempting to cross the border into the United States at Akwesasne, having been denied refugee status by Canada, and facing deportation. Two years later, we meet the brother of Florin Iordache, the deceased father of the family, who in turn is seeking asylum in a Canadian system that has many biases against the Roma community. Report.

“Since that day, since I lost my son, my life is over, I died with them”, confides Claudio Rafael Firu, who refers to his younger brother as a ‘son’. When you look into the ocean-blue eyes of this man, some grey reflections hint at the storm that has been tearing at his soul for the past two years. On March 29, 2023, the bodies of his brother Florin, 28, his sister-in-law Cristina, 28, their two-year-old daughter Evelin and their one-year-old son Eylin were found in the St. Lawrence River, on the Mohawk territory of Akwesasne, near the U.S. border. Four members of the Chaudhari family, originally from western India, also drowned in the icy waters of the river: Praveenbhai, 50, Dakshaben, 45, their son Meet, 20, and their daughter Vidhi, 23.

After four years in Canada, the birth of two children, two asylum claims, a refused Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) in 2023 and the rejection of their appeal of this decision, the Iordache family faced deportation to their country of origin: Romania.

The city of Craiova, where the Iordache family lived before their exile, is home to one of Europe's largest Roma neighbourhoods. For the young couple, it was out of the question to let their children experience the suffering endured as Roma in a segregated and discriminatory Romanian society. Even if it meant risking their lives. “They didn't know what to do, they were desperate, and they got in touch with the smugglers,” says the eldest of the siblings.

Claudio Rafael and Ana Maria Firu welcome us into their half-basement apartment, where the light hardly penetrates. Over a cup of coffee, they tell us what led them to seek asylum in Canada, despite the tragedy from which they are still suffering. On the occasion of International Roma Day, Tuesday April 8, 2025, La Converse gives them the floor.

Going into debt to bury his family

When asked about the day of March 29, 2023, Claudio Rafael Firu turns to the window. His gaze lost, he seems to be plunging back into that traumatic memory. “The week before they died, I didn't talk to my brother at all. He had decided to use a smuggler, and I didn't agree. I told him I had a very bad feeling, that he shouldn't do it, that I'd meet him in Canada and we'd find another way to cross the border, if necessary...” he recalls, with tears in his eyes. Florin's older brother was in Florida at the time. When he learned of their death, he was shocked. “I blame myself, it's my fault, I couldn't convince him, even though I knew it wasn't going to go well.

Tears are now rolling down the cheeks of the man whose life turned upside down that day. Distraught, Claudio Rafael Firu returned to Romania to prepare the funeral. “We borrowed money from members of the community to repatriate the bodies to our village. It was $21,000 per person, so $84,000 for the four of us. And then some! Initially, they were asking $26,000 per body,” he confides. Then he had to pay for the cemetery plot.

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In accordance with Romani tradition, the bodies were laid out and watched over in the family home before burial. Then, for 40 days, one visitor after another came to offer their condolences and support to the bereaved family. “The whole village came, then people from all over Europe. Morning, noon and night, we had to offer food, and bring in musicians, especially as my brother was a well-known musician... All this cost a lot of money. Hundreds of people came,” Claudio Rafael Firu points out.

The outpouring of solidarity was equal to the shock for this community. But the price of this love is high. Between the repatriation of the bodies, the funeral and the reception for the guests, the family has accumulated over $100,000 in debts. Collections are organized to help them, but the sums collected are far from sufficient.

Claudio Rafael and his wife remained in Romania to support the matriarch of the family, who was deeply affected by the loss of her children and grandchildren. Little by little, they paid off their debts, until one day they were unable to do so because of the exorbitant monthly payments they had to make, including interest. Claudio Rafael's mother is diagnosed with cancer, for which chemotherapy is necessary, and medical follow-up is costly. To cope with this latest twist of fate, the family has opened a fund on the Go Fund Me website to cover the new costs. But it remains hopelessly empty.

Behind her husband, leaning against the window, Ana Maria explains: “We tried to sell the house to pay off the debts and leave with the rest of the money. But nobody wanted to buy a house in which four people had died. People thought it would bring them bad luck,” she explains. With no other solution, the couple finally accepted the proposal of their main creditor: “He took the house for a very low price, and that paid off part of our debts. Now my mother has to sleep at each other's houses in the meantime, as she no longer has a place to live,” murmurs Claudio Rafael.

"We didn't want to come to Canada"

“I made myself two promises when my brother died: to take care of our brother who has a disability — and whom Florin helped whenever he could by sending money — and to take care of our mother. That's why we came here: to have a chance to earn a better living and offer our children a future,” stresses the father.

Two years have gone by, but he remains frozen in a pain that consumes him. He has suffered daily from insomnia since the tragedy. “I'm only 39, and all my hair and beard have turned white and gray. I've lost so much weight that I don't even recognize myself in the mirror.” He hands us an identity document. Brown hair, neatly trimmed beard, chubby cheeks, it's indeed another man we discover in the photo.

Claudio Rafael admits that he didn't originally want to settle his family in Canada. Toronto was merely a stopover on the way to the United States. “I didn't want to live in the country that pushed my brother and his family to their deaths by refusing their request for asylum,” he says, running a hand through his hair. Angry at the country he holds responsible for the death of his loved ones, he finally resolves to seek asylum in Canada for his family, after they miss their connecting flight at Toronto airport on April 24, 2024. “As we say back home: nothing happens by chance. This is our destiny,” he says in a resigned tone.

Today, despite the debts hanging over their heads, the members of the Firu family want to believe in a better future. The couple are aware that the asylum procedure can take several years, but are worried that they have no news of their application for a work permit. Without a job, the couple can no longer pay their rent and risk eviction.

“The work permit applications were in the wrong department”.

“Our rent alone costs $1,500!” says Ana Maria, handing us the notice she received from their landlord. It's been two months since they've been able to pay it, and they're waiting for the housing court summons. “How do they expect us to pay our rent, feed our kids, pay the bills, dress them for school... on $1,500 and without allowing us to work?” asks the mother.

Ana Maria points to a bouquet of roses in a bucket of water by the sofa. Its bright colors stand out against the darkness of the apartment. She sells them individually to try and earn a few dollars. With $1,500 in social assistance, the family of four can no longer make ends meet.

Thanks to legal aid, Claudio Rafael has written several times to the lawyer handling their case for news of their work permits. “She says she doesn't know, and gives us a phone number, but I don't understand anything. When I call, I never get through to anyone,” he says. He has difficulty expressing himself fluently in French, which complicates his telephone communication with immigration services. In the reply e-mails we received from the lawyer, she simply states that she is not in charge of following up work permits, and gives the Immigration number. Despite several attempts, La Converse was unable to obtain an interview with her.

Faced with Claudio Rafael's dismay, we decided to contact Immigration ourselves. “Welcome to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada!” The robotic voice echoes through the cell phone speaker. We are soon presented with various options: “Type 1”, “Type 5”... After three unsuccessful attempts, we finally manage to speak to an immigration officer. He puts us on hold. A few minutes later, the verdict is in: “the work permit applications were in the wrong department, so nobody processed them.” The couple's hopeful faces are soon overcome by incomprehension, then shock.

“So now their request hasn't progressed at all?"

"That's right. But it's okay, I sent both requests to the right department this time. So they can now be processed."

"But when? They're asylum seekers and they need to work."

"It will be less than 111 days, but I can't tell you exactly how long.”

An hour has passed when we hang up. Claudio Rafael sits on the sofa, staring at the wall in front of him. Sitting at the table, Ana Maria can't believe it. “So, that was it... And if you hadn't called, our file would still be in the same department with nobody looking after it... I don't know how we're going to manage in the meantime,” she bellows, holding her head.

For the time being, their asylum application, submitted at Toronto airport in April 2024, is still being processed, and they are awaiting the date of their court hearing. A crucial hearing for their future, during which they will have to prove that they were victims of persecution in their country of origin.

Discrimination, aggression, segregation — the violent daily lives of Roma in Romania

“In Romania, our community is the victim of a lot of prejudice and racism. When you're Roma, you can't find work, you can't find housing outside the village, your children are harassed and abused at school... That's why my brother went to Canada, and that's why we're here today,” says Claudio Rafael Firu. The Roma community represents almost 9% of the Romanian population. Yet it suffers one of the highest rates of social rejection of any group vulnerable to discrimination, confirmed the Romanian Institute for Human Rights in 2021.

Some schools go so far as to implement school segregation, separating classes according to pupils' ethnic origin and place of residence, or dedicating “special” schools to Roma children. In 2021 in Romania, 51% of Roma children attended segregated schools, compared with 28% in 2016, according to a study published in 2024 by the Council of Europe.

Amnesty International also denounced hate speech against Roma, including by political figures in 2021. And the situation has not improved in recent years. In its 2023-2024 report on Romania, the NGO recalls several serious events, including the torture of two Roma by police officers in Tulcea, and the refusal of the Urziceni hospital to treat a pregnant Roma woman, who was forced to give birth on the sidewalk.

For the Firu couple, who have lived through this persecution and know its repercussions, it's hard to understand why Canada wouldn't recognize their suffering.

A lack of understanding of Roma history

“The forced migration of Roma to countries like Canada is often misunderstood... They migrate because their rights are not respected and they are discriminated against on a daily basis,” explains human rights researcher Izabela Tiberiade. From Craiova, Romania, the home town of the Iordache and Firu, she shares her analysis of the complex situation of Roma seeking refuge in Canada, a country perceived as a land of welcome by many of them.

According to Ms. Tiberiade, several institutional and cultural obstacles stand in the way of the Roma's access to refugee status, despite Canada's past efforts to open the door a little more to this population and enable them to obtain asylum: “Even if the Roma have Romanian passports, their ethnicity must be taken into account when processing their asylum application.”

The history of this heterogeneous people has been marked by migration and persecution since their arrival in Europe in the 14th century. “The Nazi genocide marks a turning point in the recent history of the Roma. It marked the apogee of a centuries-old attitude of discrimination, stigmatization and persecution”, says the Roma Children's Education Project.

Today, Canada sees them as Romanian citizens of a so-called democratic country and doesn't understand that they carry a whole history of transgenerational trauma,” says Izabela Tiberiade. There's a direct connection with the deportations from Transnistria, which goes back to the Holocaust and the Romanian Roma, because that's where the wave of migration to Canada began.” Ms. Tiberiade, whose uncle is himself a survivor of the camps, emphasizes the lack of recognition of her community's victim status. “The Roma did not benefit from any reparation policy or healing process” after the Second World War.

This is one of the factors behind the problems faced by the Roma in Canada, but not the only one. The integration of Eastern European countries into the European Union (EU) in the 2000s marked a turning point. In 2004, Hungary, home to many Roma, joined the EU, followed by Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, and Croatia in 2013.

This allowed the inhabitants of these countries, now EU citizens, to be exempted from visa requirements, triggering an exodus of Roma to Canada from 2007 to 2011. Faced with this new migratory flow, the Conservative government of the time introduced the legislation known as Bill C-31.

C-31, dissuasive advertising campaigns, prejudice: the impact of federal policies

Gina Csanyi-Robah, director and founder of the Canadian Romani Alliance, and a teacher with the Vancouver School Board, has dedicated her life to raising awareness among the Canadian public of the challenges faced by the Roma, particularly those seeking refuge in this country. According to her, the Roma face institutional barriers that are the result of racial prejudice and discrimination deeply rooted in the asylum system.

One of the defining moments of this institutionalization of discrimination against the Roma community occurred in 2012, when Stephen Harper's Conservative government passed Bill C-31, entitled Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. “The government used terms like 'bogus refugees', insinuating that Roma were fleeing fictitious conditions, which created a climate of mistrust and rejection,” explains the then director of Toronto's Roma Community Centre.

Bill C-31 introduces a series of major changes, including the creation of a list of “safe” countries, which includes Romania. Asylum seekers from one of these “safe” countries will have to deal with shorter deadlines for submitting their application, the impossibility of appealing a refusal, and restricted access to the Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) procedure. “This law was clearly aimed at the Roma community. As a result, acceptance rates for asylum applications from Roma refugees dropped sharply, remaining at zero for several months after the law was passed,” says Gina Csanyi-Robah.

In 2013, Ottawa went so far as to spend public money on an advertising campaign, including large billboards, newspaper messages and radio spots in the Hungarian city of Miskolc. The aim? To dissuade potential Roma asylum seekers from coming to Canada.

At the time, Amnesty International, the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and the Canadian Council for Refugees decided to respond by forming the Justice for Immigrants and Refugees coalition. It denounces an “unconstitutional” regulation, and the fact that the list of “safe countries” is determined by the Minister of Immigration without relying on expert advice, and calls for its withdrawal.

It was only in 2019 that this law was finally repealed. However, it will have left scars. In September 2024, Harvard University, in collaboration with the Canadian Romani Alliance, published a report concluding that the vast majority of Roma Canadians had already experienced discrimination because of their origin.

Last year, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada accepted 71% of the 203 cases of Romanian asylum seekers (presumed to be mostly Roma) that it handled. As a reminder, this protection status is granted if one proves that there is a risk of being tortured, of having one's life threatened, of suffering cruel and unusual treatment or punishment in the event of return to one's country of origin.

However, there is a persistence of biases in judges' decisions, which the expert attributes to the ignorance that surround the Roma community. The woman whose Roma grandparents fled Hungary in 1956 cites the strong variation in the rates of recognition of asylum applications depending on the commissioner who deals with the case. “If we take the case of Romania, where the Iordaches come from, some judges reach 100% acceptance, while others only recognize 37% of cases. What justifies such a discrepancy? ” asks Csanyi-Robah.

“Judges who review asylum applications still have unconscious prejudices against Roma. People who don't know our community are often influenced by the negative stereotypes conveyed in the media or in Europe, where we sometimes see Roma living in poverty and begging in tourist areas,” said Csanyi-Robah.

With the federal election campaign in full swing, she cites the attitude of political and judicial decision-makers as the key to a better future for Roma in Canada. The activist advocates the establishment of cultural and historical training for immigration commissioners. For its part, the Refugee Law Lab recommends putting in place mechanisms to monitor the work of commissioners.

A lack of resources for Roma

Furthermore, Claudio Rafael Firu refused the assistance of an interpreter during his interview with Immigration: “They are Romanians, and I don't trust their way of translating. I prefer to express myself in French, even if it's not perfect.” A fear that would be well-founded, according to the researcher's discoveries.

“I had unprecedented access to transcripts of interviews with Roma people seeking asylum with the assistance of an interpreter. What we notice is that the interpreter does not accurately translate the statements of asylum seekers and that he gives his opinion by saying, for example, that he does not think that what the person is saying is true”, reveals the expert. This linguistic issue is all the more damaging as Roma already have difficulty explaining what they are experiencing in Romania or elsewhere, adds Izabela Tiberiade.

Ana Maria Firu also says she feels lost and does not know who to turn to for help with their procedures. “Canada does not allow Roma to have specialized help during their administrative procedures. They are often unfamiliar with asylum systems and have limited language proficiency — so they are confronted with linguistic and institutional barriers,” says Tiberias.

For years, organizations like Romanipe or the Toronto Roma Community Centre (TRCC) supported Roma asylum seekers and offered them front-line resources. But due to lack of funding, these aids could not be sustained. Today, Romanipe is no longer active, and the TRCC no longer offers direct services to asylum seekers. Unable to rely on a structured and organized community, newcomers turn to professionals who are sometimes unscrupulous.

Some Roma asylum seekers report having been victims of discriminatory treatment by non-Roma lawyers of Eastern European origin. In 2017, the Toronto Star revealed that three lawyers from Toronto of Hungarian origin — Viktor Hohots, Joseph Farkas, and Erzsebet Jaszi — had been convicted of serious professional misconduct in dealing with thousands of Roma refugee cases. This decision followed class actions filed by former clients and highlighted systemic flaws in the asylum system.

Without competent representation, these asylum seekers have never really had the chance to have their stories heard and to present their claims under fair conditions.

To improve the situation, Izabela Tiberiade calls for recognition by the Canadian government of the unique situation of Roma and calls on Ottawa to adopt asylum policies that take into account the history and particular needs of Roma. “Canada should engage in a good conversation with Romania at a diplomatic level, with professionals and with Roma who work for Roma,” she suggests.

According to the specialist, it is an essential condition to combat discrimination against Roma in Canada and to ensure their genuine integration. There is no doubt, for Tiberiade, that in the absence of concrete efforts to address these gaps, Roma will continue to face insurmountable challenges in their quest for safety and dignity in Canada.

Despite these challenges, Gina Csanyi-Robah wants to remain hopeful. She recalls that advances are possible, such as the official recognition by the Canadian government of the Roma genocide during the Second World War: “This has contributed to changing perceptions and paving the way for more support for Roma,” she concludes.

For their part, Rafael Claudio and Ana Maria Firu want to believe that the country they hold responsible for the deaths of their loved ones will not cause their family to suffer a new trauma and allow them to start a new chapter in their lives here.

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