OTTAWA: Six individuals from Sri Lanka, together with a mom and 4 younger youngsters, have been knifed to demise within the Canadian capital Ottawa late on Wednesday (Mar 6), police mentioned on Thursday, rocking a rustic the place mass murders are uncommon.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mentioned he was horrified by what he referred to as a “horrible tragedy”. The daddy of the household was additionally wounded within the assault and is within the hospital.
Police mentioned Febrio De-Zoysa, a 19-year-old male pupil from Sri Lanka, had been arrested and charged with six counts of first-degree homicide and one depend of tried homicide. De-Zoysa knew the household and had been residing in the home, they mentioned.
The victims killed have been a 35-year-old lady and her youngsters aged seven, 4, two and two months, in addition to a 40-year-old man who was an acquaintance of the household.
“This was a mindless act of violence perpetrated on purely harmless individuals,” Ottawa police chief Eric Stubbs instructed a televised information convention. Police mentioned they’d had no earlier dealings with the suspect or the household.
Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, in a social media put up, mentioned it was “one of the crucial stunning incidents of violence in our metropolis’s historical past”.
Ottawa, which has a inhabitants of 1 million, noticed 14 murders in 2023 and 15 in 2022.
Wednesday’s victims have been discovered inside a home within the southwestern suburb of Barrhaven. Police arrived on the scene following emergency calls shortly earlier than 11pm on Wednesday.
Mass killings in Canada are rare. In December 2022, a person shot 5 individuals in a Toronto suburb earlier than being gunned down by police.
In September that 12 months, a person stabbed and killed 11 individuals within the western province of Saskatchewan. He died of a cocaine overdose shortly after being arrested.
