31-year-old An Wu was an American scholar who came to attend a conference in Montreal. Leaving San Diego, she was in the Quebec metropolis to attend COSYNE, a popular neuroscience conference held in Montreal and Mont-Tremblant from March 9 to 14. Last week, La Presse reported that An Wu’s friends had not heard from her the previous weekend. His relatives, consumed by concern, then contacted the police to obtain more information. Since An Wu’s family lives in China, it was Ms. Wu’s entourage, who is in San Diego, who had gone looking for her. After finding his apartment empty, they notified the authorities of his disappearance. “Nothing is going to bring An back to them. But we hope for answers from the police, the government and the owner,” illustrated Enida Gjoni, her colleague at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
Both 18, Charlie Lacroix and Walid Belkahla had rented an apartment for a night out on a short-term rental site at the time of the fire. “Come get us, we can’t get out,” Charlie Lacroix allegedly said during a 911 call, according to his father, Louis-Philippe Lacroix. According to our information, she and the young man who accompanied her could not leave the apartment, the latter having no window. The SPVM confirmed the identity of these two victims on Tuesday, thus ending the search for victims as part of the ongoing investigation. “She was a super playful little girl. She was 18, she had everything in front of her. […] If there had been an emergency exit, it would be there. Not even an emergency exit, a window. Just a window. That’s all, “said Mr. Lacroix with emotion, speaking of his daughter, during an interview with La Presse which took place recently.
Dania Zafar and Saniya Khan were two childhood friends from Pakistan. Both 31 years old, they were on vacation in Montreal when the fire occurred. The first now lived in Toronto, while the other resided in the Detroit area, in Michigan, in the United States. From Pakistan, Dania Zafar’s father, Mahmood Zafar, told several media outlets, including the Toronto Star, in recent days that the two young women were supposed to return to Toronto on the day the fire occurred. His daughter worked in publishing and was taking steps to obtain her Canadian citizenship, the man continued. Saniya Khan was pursuing a master’s degree in public health at Wayne State University in the heart of Detroit.
Photographer by profession, Camille Maheux, 76 years old and born in Saint-Georges de Beauce, had lived in the burnt building on Place D’Youville for 30 years. This is the first victim formally identified by the police, as of last week. According to our information, Ms. Maheux was also the only one among the victims who was a permanent resident of the building, the other identified victims being mostly passing through Montreal. The septuagenarian worked mainly from Montreal, but also in Brazil since 1982, where she notably covered the 1º Festival Nacional de Mulheres nas Artes in São Paulo. Member of Plessisgraphe (1975-1985), a photography workshop of the 1970s and 1980s, she also participated in numerous exhibitions in Canada, Brazil, France and Italy, in addition to having published her photos in several magazines. and magazines. She had studied cinema at the National Institute of Performing Arts (INSAS) in Belgium.
35-year-old Nathan Sears, he had just been named holder of a doctorate in political science at the University of Toronto when the fire took him, reported various media. His social networks also indicate that he has worked for the federal government, at Global Affairs Canada, where he obtained a scholarship, as well as at the Trudeau Center for Peace, Conflict and Justice (TCPCJ). He had also gone through Carleton University, where he obtained a master’s degree. “We are all appalled by this loss,” Steven Bernstein, his thesis director, recently explained to the English-language daily Montreal Gazette. “I have never met a student who cares so much about what he has studied,” he also insisted.
