Among the victims of a rare mass shooting in Ottawa were four children and two adults. A 19-year-old acquaintance was arrested.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the mass murder of an Ottawa family who had recently moved from Sri Lanka, calling it an act of “terrible violence.”
Trudeau's comments Thursday came hours after a family and an acquaintance were killed in an apparent overnight stabbing in the Ottawa suburb of Barrhaven.
Among the victims is a 35-year-old woman and her four children, ages seven, four, two and two months. A 40-year-old family friend also died.
The attack has reverberated across Canada, which, unlike its southern neighbor the United States, rarely suffers mass casualty attacks. In 2023 there were only 14 murders in Ottawa, a city of one million people. The previous year, the count was only 15.
“Obviously, our first reactions are all shock and horror at this terrible violence,” Trudeau told reporters.
“We hope the community will come out to support family and friends, as Canadians always do. And we hope that the jurisdiction's police will do the job and keep us all informed about this terrible tragedy.”
The motive for the killing was not immediately clear, although police said Febrio De-Zoysa, a 19-year-old student from Sri Lanka, was arrested and charged with six counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.
Police said De-Zoysa was an acquaintance who was staying with the family but had had no prior contact with authorities.
'Senseless act'
Ottawa Police Chief Eric Stubbs said during a televised news conference that the family was found inside a home after authorities responded to an emergency call shortly before 11 p.m. local time Wednesday. (02:00 GMT Thursday).
The husband of the 35-year-old mother who died in the attack was injured but survived and was taken to a hospital in stable condition. De Zoysa was arrested at the scene.
Stubbs said a “knife weapon” was used in the murders.
“This was a senseless act of violence perpetrated against purely innocent people,” he said.
On social media, Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe called the attack “one of the most shocking incidents of violence in the history of our city.”
I was devastated to learn of the multiple homicide in Barrhaven, one of the most shocking incidents of violence in our city's history. We are proud to live in a safe community, but this news is distressing for all Ottawa residents. Ginny and I are thinking about family members and…
—Mark Sutcliffe (@_MarkSutcliffe) March 7, 2024
Mass killings are relatively rare in Canada, which has a population of just over 38 million. However, in 2022 there were two notable attacks. In December of that year, a man shot five people in a Toronto suburb before being shot dead by police.
Several months earlier, in September, a man also stabbed and killed 11 people in the western province of Saskatchewan. He died of a cocaine overdose shortly after being arrested.
The rate of such attacks is much lower than in the United States, which has a population of 331 million. In 2023, there were 42 mass murders, defined as incidents in which four or more victims die, according to Northeastern University's mass murder database.
The figure was the second highest in the United States since 2006, the year the database began tracking mass killings. In 2019, there were 46 attacks that caused 234 fatalities.
