A 51-year-old set fire to houses and then shot at the refugees. After a chase of around 12 hours, the gunman dies in a shootout.
It is the worst massacre in Canada’s recent history: 18 people were killed in the Canadian Atlantic province of Nova Scotia (Nova Scotia). And on Monday it was still unclear whether there were other victims of the bloody crime that have not yet been discovered.
The alleged perpetrator was also killed when the police later seized it. At first it was not known whether the 51-year-old had been shot by the security forces or killed himself. The exact motif of the man who had owned a dental laboratory in Halifax near Dartmouth was also left in the dark. Neighbors, customers, and a journalist who had made a portrait of the man a few years ago described him as friendly.
The killing spree had started on Saturday evening in the Portapique community on Fundy Bay, about 100 kilometers north of the provincial capital Halifax. According to fragmentary information from the police and eyewitnesses, the alleged perpetrator may have set houses on fire and then shot at refugees.
Gunfire at a gas station
After the massacre, the attacker escaped in a vehicle that looked like a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) car. Apparently the man himself painted it with the colors of the emergency vehicles. The police’s hunt for the perpetrator ended about twelve hours later with a shootout at a gas station.
The 51-year-old may have had personal relationships with some, but not all victims. RCMP chief Brenda Lucki said that the police have not yet assumed a terrorist act.
(APA / AFP)
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