Canadian studies shattered by Saudi row

Naseem waited three years to be accepted to a Canadian postgraduate program. With two years left before she would receive her PhD, the Saudi student's plans have been upended thanks to a diplomatic spat.

The kingdom this week suspended all scholarships to Canada as part of a rupture between the two countries over Ottawa's criticism of Riyadh's human rights record. Saudi students will be relocated to other countries.

For Naseem, that could mean she and her husband, who is studying to be a medical doctor, may never earn their degrees.

And she feels totally lost, having left Saudi Arabia just after her father passed away in 2017 to pursue her academic dream, 6,500 miles (10,500 kilometers) away from home.

"Everything is gone," said the mother of two, who lives in Toronto but spoke to AFP during a family visit to Riyadh.

"I still have two years to get a PhD, and my husband needs two years to graduate as a doctor. We had the perfect plan. Now we might have to start from zero, but I cannot do it. I just can't," she said.

For Samira, the complications are similar. She and her husband were married in Jeddah on Tuesday, a day after the Saudi measure was announced.

They'd planned to live in Canada until he completes his studies, but at the wedding she felt "broken, disappointed," she said.

"I am about to quit my life to go live with my husband in Canada, where he owns a house. Now, I don't know where we will go. All our plans were smashed with one decision, and we weren't even married yet."
"We're still trying to sort out the situation," the University of Ottawa's Veronique Vallee told AFP. "Our main concern is the wellbeing of the students." -
She noted that a medical degree typically takes three to four years to complete and is followed by an additional two to seven years of "residency training."