THE GUNMEN WHO STRUCK IN BURKINA FASO WERE FROM THE AL-MURABITOON BATTALION, A FACTION LED BY A ONE-EYED ALGERIAN ALREADY WANTED BY THE RCMP FOR KIDNAPPING CANADIAN DIPLOMATS.
• As an aid worker, Yves Carrier was accustomed to travelling to Burkina Faso to help the underprivileged communities there.
Last December, he took his fourth trip to the African nation, the first with his daughter and son.
Carrier, his wife, Gladys Chamberland, his daughter, Maude, 37, and the couple’s son, Charlelie, 21, were among the six Quebecers who died in Saturday’s attack in the Splendid Hotel and nearby Cappuccino Café in the West African country’s capital of Ouagadougou.
The other two Quebecers, Louis Chabot and Suzanne Bernier, were friends of the family who were also part of the aid mission. The group arrived in Burkina Faso about Dec. 24 and were doing work for several aid groups, including Congrégation des soeurs de NotreDame du Perpétuel Secours.
“All these people were exceptionally generous all the time,” Camille Carrier, Maude’s mother, said by phone Sunday. “Her father, and her stepmother were incredible, and her stepmother practically became her mother. As for my daughter Maude, I would have trouble meeting anyone as generous as her,” she added.
Maude was a French teacher at Musique Brébeuf, which is part of Jean-de-Brébeuf High School in Quebec City. She lived in Lévis, near Quebec City, with her boyfriend, Yves Richard, and their two daughters, 3 and 5.
On her Facebook Page, Maude recently posted a picture of her holding a baby, with the caption: “I found my baby!” She posted several videos and photographs of Kongoussi, the village where the group was staying.
Chabot was a former math teacher at Jean-de-Brébeuf.
Maude followed in the footsteps of her father, Yves, who was the assistant director of the school until he retired several years ago.
“As their colleagues and friends, we were all spoiled to have been able to know them,” Musique Brébeuf wrote on its Facebook Page about Maude and Yves. “They will remain among the most gentle, authentic and generous people we will ever know.”
Much of Yves’s attention was focused on helping underprivileged communities in the African nation.
“He was a very positive person, and now we’re going to have to be more like him,” Marlène Carrier, Yves’s sister, told the TVA television network. “He had a huge heart.”
Charlelie was a graduate of CÉGEP Limoilou and a counsellor at the summer camp at le Saisonnier, centre de plein air. The camp posted an homage to Charlelie on its Facebook page.
“He was a counsellor who changed the lives of many young people, and had a generous soul,” the post read.
Yolande Blier, a superior for Congrégation des soeurs de Notre-Dame du Perpétuel Secours in Burkina Faso, said while she is sad about the loss of her friends, she’s also concerned the attack will stem the tide of people from Canada travelling to Burkina Faso to help the local population.