A night of fun for a group of indigenous youth ended in tragedy when two young girls were among three people killed in a head-on collision in southern Ontario, the chief of the devastated community said Thursday.
Stacey Laforme of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation said the two girls, aged 12 and 14, died while travelling home with their youth group from a game of laser tag in nearby Hamilton.
The outing was one of many efforts to arrange engaging activities for the young people of the southern Ontario reserve, he said.
The fatal accident, which also claimed the life of a man from a neighbouring First Nation, has left a community struggling to come to terms with the loss, he said.
"We've suffered a tragic event," Laforme told a press conference. "We're so closely knit that all our members are suffering."
Ontario Provincial Police said the fatal crash unfolded on Wednesday around 9 p.m. — on Highway 6 between the communities of Hagersville and Caledonia — when two vans carrying 15 members of the youth group were returning to the First Nation.
Const. Rodney Leclair said one of the vans, carrying seven youth and driven by a 27-year-old man, was travelling southbound when a car going the opposite way crossed the centre line and plowed into the van head-on.
Leclair said the force of the crash sent the van rolling into the ditch.
The two young girls in the van were pronounced dead at the scene, as was the 21-year-old male driver of the car. Police have indicated he lived in the nearby Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation.
The names of the victims have not been released.
The Six Nations chief did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Leclair said the six other occupants of the van involved in the crash were all sent to local hospitals with serious injuries.
The cause of the crash is under investigation, he added.
Laforme said Lloyd S. King Elementary School is closed for the day to allow students to process the loss.
Counsellors are available to all residents at the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation community centre, he said, adding the age of the victims compounds the force of the tragedy.
"The close-knitness (sic) of the community and the Nation is something we're very proud of and something we strive to maintain," he said. "When we lose children, people always think of 'your children, my children, her children, his children,' but they're all our children."
