(Reuters) – Four people, including a baby, froze to death in a wind-swept remote part of Canada very close to the U.S. border and human smugglers may have played a role in the tragedy, police said on Thursday.
Police in the province of Manitoba found the bodies near the small farming community of Emerson after U.S. counterparts apprehended a group who crossed over from Canada and found evidence others might have tried to make the same journey.
The victims – a man, a woman, a teenage boy and a baby – were found on the Canadian side on Wednesday, about 40 feet (12 meters) from the frontier with Minnesota. First indications are that they died from exposure to the cold.
“We’re very concerned that this attempted crossing may have been facilitated in some way, and that these individuals … were left on their own in the middle of a blizzard,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy told a televised news conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
“These victims faced not only the cold weather, but also endless fields, large snowdrifts and complete darkness,” she added, saying wind chill had driven down the temperature to minus 35 C (minus 31 F).
MacLatchy said authorities on both sides of the border were trying to confirm details of what had happened. The victims are yet to be identified.
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Leslie Adler)
