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“Everybody here is absolutely devastated,” said Bita Pejam, president of the 60-member Iranian Student Association at Western, who knew one of the London victims, Ghazal Nourian.

“It is an absolute tragedy for the Iranian community and for Western,” said Pejam.

Other schools reporting deaths included the University of Toronto, York University, the University of Alberta and Carleton University in Ottawa, where doctoral student Fareed Arasteh was returning to continue his studies after being married Sunday in Iran.

The four Western students include three women – Nourian, Hadis Hayatdavoudi, Sajedeh Saraeian – and one man, Milad Nahavandi. Three were graduate students, in engineering or chemistry; the other, Saraeian, an incoming graduate student in engineering.

About 250 people attended a brief memorial to the four on campus later Wednesday, a sombre ceremony marked by candles, a slide show about the students and remarks about their loss.

“This is not right. We should not be here. We should be celebrating their return from holidays,” said London Mayor Ed Holder.

To those mourning, he said: “We wrap our arms around you and say to you, ‘We are one.'”

Western University president Alan Shepard said the students were “an extraordinary loss” and “we grieve their untimely deaths.”

Kopal Soni, a master’s engineering student from India, said her roommate knew one of the students who died in the crash. “They were close,” she said.