The light at the end of the tunnel, after ten months. Such a long time has passed since when 10 Iranians, all members of the same family, arrived in Moscow, waiting for a Canadian visa as political refugees.

An incredible occurrence. Their adventure, recalling the one inspiring the film “The Terminal”, with Tom Hanks, started in 2004, when the fugitives tried to reach their relatives in Ottawa, going through Russia and Germany. After the first stopover in Moscow, where everything went well, the customs police in Frankfurt realised they had fake passports and embarked the whole family on the first flight to Russia. Just arrived in Moscow, at the Sheremetyevo stopover, they were fortunately confined under house arrest instead of being returned to Iran, where certainly they would not have received a warm reception. At that point the Canadian embassy officers in Moscow started a long bureaucratic process to consider their request for political asylum.

Happy ending. To top it all the family odyssey became more complicated because the application presented at the United Nations agency for political refugees was wrong. The fault was the interpreter's who missed some details in the translation of the application from the Farsi language to English. At that point, in May 2006, the Russian government deprived the Iranian family of lodging and took it to the Moscow Sheremetyevo airport terminal. The ten Iranians lived in the airport, among unaware tourists and businessmen, until today, when the US TV network CBS announced that the Canadian government granted authorisation. Lacking everything they could survive only thanks to the airport personnel solidarity and have taken off today towards Ottawa, where they reckon to build a new life.