The victims of a rare mass murder in Ottawa included four children and two adults. A 19-year-old acquaintance was arrested.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the mass murder of a Sri Lankan immigrant family in Ottawa as a “terrible act of violence.”
Trudeau's comments Thursday came hours after a family member and an acquaintance were apparently stabbed to death in the middle of the night in the Ottawa suburb of Barrhaven.
The victims included a 35-year-old woman and four children aged 7, 4, 2 and 2 months. A 40-year-old family friend was also killed.
The attack reverberated across Canada, but unlike in its southern neighbor the United States, attacks that cause mass casualties are rare. In 2023, there were only 14 homicides in Ottawa, a city of one million people. Last year, there were only 15 cases.
“Our first reaction to this horrific violence is clearly one of shock and horror,” Trudeau told reporters.
“We hope that the community will reach out to support their families and friends, as Canadians always do. And we hope that our law enforcement agencies will continue to act and respond to this terrible tragedy.” I look forward to informing all of you.”
A motive for the killing was not immediately clear, but police arrested Febrio de Zoysa, 19, a student from Sri Lanka, and charged him with six counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder. announced.
Police said Dezoyza was an acquaintance who was staying with his family, but had no previous contact with law enforcement.
“Senseless act”
Ottawa Police Chief Eric Stubbs said in a televised news conference that the family was found inside the home after authorities responded to an emergency call just before 11pm local time (2am Thursday morning Japan time).
The husband of the 35-year-old mother who died in the attack was injured but survived and was taken to hospital in stable condition. Dezoysa was arrested at the scene.
Mr Stubbs said a “knife” was used in the killing.
“This was a senseless act of violence committed against purely innocent people,” he said.
Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe called the attack “one of the most shocking incidents of violence in our city's history” on social media.
I was devastated to learn of the multiple murders, one of the most shocking incidents of violence in the history of the city of Barrhaven. We are proud to live in a safe community and this news is sad for all Ottawa residents. Ginny and I are thinking about our family…
— Mark Sutcliffe (@_MarkSutcliffe) March 7, 2024
Mass murders are relatively rare in Canada, a country of just over 38 million people. However, in 2022 he had two notable attacks. In December of the same year, a man shot and killed five people in a Toronto suburb before being shot dead by police.
A few months earlier, in September, a man stabbed 11 people to death in the western province of Saskatchewan. He died of a cocaine overdose shortly after his arrest.
The incidence of such attacks is much lower than in the United States, which has a population of 331 million people. According to Northeastern University's mass murder database, there will be 42 mass murders in 2023, defined as incidents in which four or more victims are killed.
The number was the second highest in the United States since 2006, when the database began tracking mass murders. In 2019, there were 46 attacks resulting in the deaths of 234 victims.