The body of one of the two brothers suspected of having killed ten on Sunday, brought several “visible injuries,” the police announced. It was found in one of the localities where the murders took place.
Le Monde with AFP
The body of one of the two suspects of the knife attacks which left ten dead on Sunday and eighteen injured in Canada, was found in one of the localities where the murders took place, announced , Monday September 5, the police.
While the authorities suspected a flight in Regina, the capital of the province of Saskatchewan who is more than 300 km from the premises of the drama, the body of Damien Sanderson, 31, who wore several “visible injuries”. been discovered in the Aboriginal community in James Smith Cree Nation. He was “in a grassy area, near a house being examined,” said the assistant commissioner of the Royal Canada Gendarmerie, Rhonda Blackmore.
The other suspect, his brother Myles Sanderson, 35, is still considered on the run and could have been injured, she added at a press conference. He may have “needed care”. “We cannot say with certainty how Damian died, but he could have been killed by his brother,” she added.
hundreds of police officers mobilized
The police said Myles Sanderson represented a “threat”. “We always recommend people to be vigilant, he is considered dangerous. His actions have shown that he is violent,” said the police. Myles Sanderson is, according to the Saskatoon police service, wanted by the police since last May for not having respected its judicial control. He had been sentenced to almost five years’ imprisonment, especially for theft.
Hundreds of police have been mobilized since Sunday to find these men suspected of a series of attacks whose reason remains unexplained. Police counted thirteen crime scenes in remote localities from the country’s center-west, including an indigenous community.
No information was communicated on the victims by the authorities in the immediate future. But the majority of them are indigenous. In Canada, the latter represent approximately 5 % of the country’s population – estimated at more than 38 million inhabitants – and live in communities often ravaged by unemployment and poverty. According to the police, some victims were targeted by the suspects and others have been attacked at random.
The locality of James Smith Cree Nation, which has 2,500 inhabitants, locally decreed the state of emergency. The leader of the Federation of Aboriginal Nations Sovereign, Bobby Cameron, deplored “the unspeakable violence that cost the life of innocent”. In a press release, he attributed the responsibility of these attacks on “illegal drugs that invade our communities”.
“which has become too common”, deplores Trudeau
In recent years, Canada has experienced a succession of events of rare violence. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau deplored on Monday that this type of deadly attacks have “become too common” in the country.
In April 2020, a shooter pretended to be a police officer, killing twenty-two people in Nova Scotia. In January 2017, six people perished and five were injured in attacks that targeted a Quebec mosque.
“This type of violence has no place in our country,” he said, calling the inhabitants of the province to prudence and to collaborate with the police.
Several international officials have expressed their support in Canada after this drama. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz evoked “horrible and devastating” attacks, and Israeli Prime Minister Yaïr Lapid tweeted that his country was held “alongside Canadians in the face of such insane violence”.
The president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who said she was “horrified”, has promised to “pay tribute to the victims” during her visit to Saskatoon in two weeks.