Five dead after gunman opens fire at school in remote Canada

FIVE people have been killed and several injured by a gunman who opened fire at a school in an aboriginal community in the remote far north of Canada.

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, described the shooting at La Loche Community School as “every parent’s worst nightmare”. The gunman was arrested.

“I ran outside the school,” said Noel Desjarlais, a tenth grade student. “There was lots of screaming. There were about six, seven shots before I got outside. I believe there were more shots by the time I did get out.” Around 900 students, from pre-kindergarten to Grade 12, are registered at the school.

Shocked residents of the lakeside town of 2,600 were last night asking how the type of violence so common south of the border, in America, could come to their isolated community, 500 miles north of Edmonton.

Teddy Clark, the chief of Clearwater River Dene Nation, said: “The community usually pulls together really strong in times like this.”

Many of the residents identify themselves as First Nations people – Canada’s aboriginal people.

Kevin Janvier, mayor of La Loche, said the alarm was sounded in the early afternoon, and the lockdown at the school ended at 3pm local time, or 9pm in the UK.

“It’s just tragic and everybody’s running around,” said Mr Janvier.

“I’m not 100 per cent sure about what’s actually happened but it started at home and ended at the school.”

Mobile phone footage on Canadian websites showed people standing near their 4x4 trucks in a snowy car park, looking bewildered amid shouts.

A report in Canada’s National Post last year painted a striking portrait of the isolation of the community, and focused on the high levels of mental health problems.

The annual suicide rate in the Keewatin Yatthe Regional Health Authority – an area which includes La Loche - is the highest of any health authority in Saskatchewan, and triple the state average.

“La Loche is also isolated, with few amenities,” the paper reported. “It has no hotels, no sit-down restaurants, no movie theatres or recreation centres. It doesn’t even have a bank.”

Canada’s gun laws are often seen as strict in comparison to those of the United States. But others say recent developments have eroded safeguards.

Federal regulations require all gun owners, who must be at least 18 years of age, to obtain a licence that includes a background check and a public safety course.

Rifles and shotguns are not restricted, but to buy semiautomatic weapons and hand guns requires a federal registration certificate. Automatic weapons are banned.

‘There was lots of screaming. There were about six, seven shots before I got outside’