Sawt Falasteen - From Tehran to Toronto via Turkey: an Iranian's bid to flee war

The 40-year-old Iranian who works in Canada as a business analyst was stranded when Iran closed its airspace after Israel launched a massive pre-dawn bombing campaign on Friday and the Islamic republic struck back, in their most intense confrontation in history.

Homa, who didn't give her surname, quickly looked for an alternative way out, eventually finding a bus to Iran's northwestern border with Turkey, a journey of 850 kilometres (530 miles).

After enduring four days of conflict, she left Tehran at 8:00 pm on Tuesday, reaching the Kapikoy border crossing into the eastern Turkish province of Van on Wednesday afternoon.

Many people were leaving Tehran, like her own family who drove to Shahriar, a town some 30 kilometres to the west on a journey that took "hours, because of the heavy traffic," she said.

"They're not safe, I am worried about them".

So far, Iran says at least 224 people have been killed in the Israeli attacks targeting Iran's military and nuclear infrastructure, while Israel says at least 24 have died in Tehran's retaliation.

Despite her long journey, Homa still has some way to go before getting back to her family in Toronto.

"Right now, I'm going to Erzurum, then to Istanbul, then to Dubai and then to Toronto," she said before starting the next five-hour leg from the border to Erzurum on her long road home.

- 'Impossible to sleep' -

"I couldn't sleep for five nights in a row" because of the sound of incoming missiles, told AFP, saying the bombardment in the east of the city had forced to her to relocate to the north.

And communication was difficult.

"The internet is awful. I couldn't even get the VPN working. Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram are all being filtered and WiFi is on-and-off," she said.

Kapikoy, which lies 100 kilometres east of the lakeside Turkish city of Van, is the main point for crossings between Turkey and Iran.

So far there doesn't appear to be a huge influx of Iranians crossing the border since the bombing began, and Turkish officials haven't given numbers.

On Wednesday afternoon, AFP correspondents saw a steady trickle of Iranians arriving, with similar numbers crossing back into Iran -- several hundred at the most.

A Turkish customs official told AFP that "there's nothing unusual compared to last year. Despite the war, the arrivals are quite stable," given that Van has always been a popular destination for Iranian tourists.

Even so, flights between Van and Istanbul have been solidly booked up in both directions for days, as have long-distance coaches.

Turkish bus drivers say the numbers have been higher over the past week.

"We used to have three to four buses between 8:00 pm and 8:00 am but right now we have 30," driver Ismail Metin told AFP, saying many head to Istanbul some 1,500 kilometres away.

-'Iranians not fleeing'-

Many Iranians are also trying to get home -- among them Ramin Rad, 37, who works in the tile business.

He was in Van for work when the bombing started, and was hoping to get back to Urmia, the largest city in Iran's Western Azerbaijan province.

"My family is safe," he said, confident that the war would not destabilise the regime and expressing anger at Israel.

"How dare you change Allah's regime? Godwilling, Muslims will win," he said.

Mirzanezhad Valehzagherd, a 49-year-old who works in tourism, often travels between Istanbul, where he lives, and Tehran, but was forced to go by land because there were no flights.

"My family lives in Tehran," he told AFP, saying the situation there was "not bad" because Israel was targeting "military" sites.

"People are not fleeing Tehran," he insisted, his words echoed by a woman in a straw hat who was going the other way.

"We live in northern Cyprus and because there's no flights, we had to get a bus to the border from Tehran," said 45-year-old Seher who works in finance.

"It's safe over there. There's no problem."

I.Yassin--SF-PST