The six people found dead on Friday were trying to cross to the United States in a region with a complicated geography made up of several territorial entities, where we cross borders made of water and contiguous roads.
This is also where three police forces and the Canadian army are working together on Friday to find two other missing people, including a toddler and a member of the Mohawk community of Akwesasne.
A place where concerns about human trafficking have been quietly but surely heard in recent months. Community members don’t want to publicly denounce a criminal network, said a man on the edge of the Band Council building as he walked away.
In April 2022, six Indian nationals were rescued from a sinking boat on the St. Regis River by local police and US Border Patrol. A seventh person attempting to leave the boat and make for shore was later identified as a US citizen. US authorities have labeled the incident as an attempted human trafficking.
Concerns
At the convenience store in Saint-Régis, which is on Aboriginal territory, the clerk is chatty while offering a coffee. “At this hour, it’s free. “And with everything that is happening, she could not make up for it. “I don’t want to repeat rumours, but yes, we’ve known for several years that people pass. And it is more and more frequent. But I mean, these are human lives,” she said, shaking her head in disapproval.
It is at the level of the channel, when the watercourse narrows, that the weather can become bad, she says, “summer and winter”. A strong wind rose from Wednesday night to Thursday, she notes, without being able to confirm whether the boat carrying migrants was already on the way.
In the air, a helicopter from the Sûreté du Québec is still flying over the Yellow and Saint-Régis islands, near where the bodies were found. All the police forces mobilized ask the population not to approach the search areas.
On dry land, very close to the Chenail de Saint-Régis, a memorial fire was lit outside Snye’s recreation hall. It will burn as long as people want to pray, says one of the women present. She does not wish to give her name because she is waiting for official spokespersons, she insists.
And even if the people found dead were not part of the Mohawk community, we wish to send “all thoughts and prayers” for them, she continues. It is that the media attention is often unfavorable to the native communities, and this time will not escape it.
The bodies were found near a boat belonging to Casey Oakes, a member of this indigenous community. On the local radio, calls to collaborate with the police to locate him are heard.
A few kilometers away, in Saint-Régis, from the quay behind a business, men took out their binoculars to see if they could see any traces of the tragedy. One of them wishes us “good luck finding someone who wants to talk”.
He repeats “what everyone knows”, he says as an evidence: “The number of people who are caught in the United States from Canada has increased. Local Mohawk Police have documented 48 incidents related to the illegal crossing of migrants from Canada to the United States since January. And it is indeed 110,000 people who were intercepted in 2022 for various reasons by the American border patrol on the common border, a much higher number than in previous years.