The University of B.C. has started a scholarship fund in honour of the Iranian-Canadians who were killed in a plane crash near Tehran earlier this month.
The university has said it will donate $50,000 to the Iranian Student Memorial Award, while the Iranian community has donated a further $10,000.
“The award will provide awards annually to students in memory of the lives lost to this tragedy,” UBC president Santa J. Ono said in a blog post.
“Many members of the UBC community were deeply affected by this devastating event.”
The Jan. 8 crash killed 176 people, including 57 Canadians. The Iranian government has admitted it accidentally shot down Ukrainian International Airlines flight 752 shortly after it left the Tehran airport.
The victims with ties to UBC are:
Mehran Abtahi, who joined UBC in October 2019 as a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of civil engineering
Niloofar Razzaghi, who graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics in May 2010 and a Bachelor of Education in November 2018
Zeynab Asadi Lari ,who was enrolled at UBC in 2016 in the BSc program, with a major in biology
Mohammadhossein Asadi Lari, who graduated with honours in 2018 with a BSc in cellular, anatomical and physiological sciences.
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