‘Our community is grieving,’ say festival organisers
Organisers of Vancouver’s annual Lapu Lapu festival in Canada, where a car ramming attack killed 11 people on Saturday, have said they are “heartbroken” and “collectively shattered”.
An exhausted and emotional RJ Aquino said the Filipino community was left “numb”, sad and angry following the incident, which police have said was not terror-related.
“We will feel the impact of this for a long time,” he said at a press conference on Sunday.
Mable Elmore, who is a Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia (MLA) for Vancouver-Kensington, described the local community as resilient and said it would “come together out of this catastrophe”.
Local authorities said the suspect, a 30-year-old man, was known to police and had a “significant history of interactions” with the healthcare system, related to mental health.
