(Toronto) Toronto residents and government officials gathered Sunday to mark the fifth anniversary of the ramming truck attack that was one of Canada’s worst mass murders.
Ten people were killed and 16 others injured when a man deliberately ran into them with a rental van on a busy sidewalk on a stretch of Yonge Street in Toronto on April 23, 2018.
Dozens of people attended a memorial ceremony at a local theater in the afternoon, which will be followed by an outdoor memorial at Mel-Lastman Square, where flowers will be laid on a temporary memorial plaque.
Betty Forsyth, Ji Hun Kim, Sohe Chung, Geraldine Brady, Chul Min Kang, Anne Marie D’Amico, Munir Najjar, Dorothy Sewell, Andrea Bradden and Renuka Amarasingha died in the April 2018 attack. Amaresh Tesfamariam succumbed to his injuries three years later.
The driver of the van, Alek Minassian was convicted of 10 counts of premeditated murder and 16 counts of attempted murder.
At his trial, he claimed his anger was sparked by women refusing to have a relationship with him after he was radicalized on the internet. Judge Anne Molloy found he carried out the attack to gain notoriety.
Mr. Minassian was sentenced to life in prison last year, without the possibility of parole for 25 years. He is appealing his conviction.
Toronto residents who live and work in the area where the attack took place five years ago say they still have vivid memories of the devastation it caused.
The City of Toronto says plans for a permanent memorial honoring the lives lost in the attack are still being finalized.
