Lake St. Martin flood evacuee charged in baby's malnutrition death would've had help in community: chief
CBC
The chief of a First Nation devastated by flooding more than a decade ago says the malnutrition death of a two-month-old baby in Winnipeg likely wouldn't have happened if his mother had been able to return home and get support in her community.
Winnipeg police charged the infant's mother, 27-year-old Alyssa Ross, with manslaughter last week, about two months after her son was pronounced dead at a home on Atlantic Avenue.
Autopsy reports determined the death of her son, King Campbell-Ross, was a result of malnutrition, police said in a news release.
During a court hearing in 2017, where the woman pleaded guilty to an impaired driving charge, court heard she was forced to leave her home in Lake St. Martin First Nation as a teen after flooding devastated the Interlake community in 2011.
At the time of the hearing, she was 20 years old and had two pre-school aged children.
The woman's lawyer, Aaron Braun, told the court she wanted to return to her home community, but that was likely "still years away."
Lake St. Martin First Nation Chief Christopher Traverse says he thinks the tragic situation involving Ross and her baby could have been avoided if she had been able to go home.
"If she would have reached out, I would have helped her get that food and nutrition for her kids," he said.
"For a baby to be a victim? That's wrong. It hurts me that I wasn't able to help."
The entire community of Lake St. Martin — nearly 3,000 people — had to evacuate their homes during the 2011 flooding in the Interlake community. A court later ruled the flooding was at least in part the fault of the Manitoba government, which chose to divert water into Lake Manitoba to protect the city of Winnipeg.
Over a decade later, Traverse says there are still more than 1,000 people who haven't been able to return to the community, most of whom are living in Winnipeg.
"It's hard living in Winnipeg … a lot of people fall victim to violence here, to suicide, to drug overdoses," he said.
The infant's death is not the first tragedy to befall Lake St. Martin members displaced from their homes.
Last December, two sisters originally from Lake St. Martin were among four people killed in a mass shooting in a Winnipeg rooming house.
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