Yazidi girl, 5, identified as crash victim

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This article was published 21/06/2019 (2271 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg Yazidi family survived the terror of the so-called Islamic State group and refugee camp perils, only to be devastated by a five-year-old’s death in a motor vehicle collision in suburban Fort Richmond.

“The family is absolutely traumatized,” said Hadji Hesso, director of the Yazidi Association of Manitoba.

On Wednesday around 1:40 p.m., two vehicles on Dalhousie Drive collided head-on between Pembina Highway and Rochester/Baylor Avenue.

A van driven by a woman (and carrying her three children, ages one, four and five) was heading west on Dalhousie when it collided with an eastbound SUV. The five-year-old girl was killed and her two younger siblings were taken to hospital in stable condition. Their mother was not injured.

Members of the local Yazidi community identified the deceased child as Binsaa Ahmed.

Hesso said Friday he is a friend of the girl’s father, but would not publicly identify her.

In 2014, when the Islamic State terror group invaded their towns and cities in northern Iraq, the Yazidis were targeted for genocide. In Winnipeg, 200 Yazidi refugees who had been rescued from persecution more than a decade earlier sounded the alarm.

Winnipeg’s Jewish community responded, creating a coalition of faith groups and volunteers to raise awareness and lobby the federal government. As a result, 1,217 Yazidis have been admitted to Canada in the past two years — 367 of whom resettled in Winnipeg.

Hesso said the family involved in Wednesday’s fatal collision arrived in Canada in 2017.

“The family was trying to be part of the community, to integrate and contribute. Tragically, this pushes us back and it pushes the family back,” he said. “What happened to them after they came to Canada, because it’s a safe country to live in, was unfortunately an accident.

“The thing we do know is the girl has lost her life.”

City police said there were only two child car seats in the vehicle; it is not yet known which of the three children was not in a car seat, or if a seatbelt was used.

Manitoba law requires children to be restrained in a rear-facing seat until they reach the limit of the seat, and in a forward-facing or booster seat until they are nine years old, weigh 36 kg or are 145 centimetres tall.

On Friday, Winnipeg police said the investigation is still underway.

“Like other serious motor vehicle collisions, investigators will work to obtain a significant amount of evidence to ensure they can reconstruct a collision, along with the circumstances that led to it,” Const. Jay Murray said in an email. “Charges are certainly a possibility, but it would be too early to determine at this time.”

The five-year-old girl was a kindergarten student at Ryerson School.

Pembina Trails School Division superintendent Ted Fransen said in a statement that the division’s student services team, including social workers and psychologists, spent Thursday offering assistance and expertise.

“The focus right now is supporting family, students and staff,” he said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca