Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 12, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba SE T T E R S T CARON AVE L O N S D A L E D R H A L L O N Q U I S T D R B O O T H D R S T U R G E O N R O A D S T U R G E O N R O A D GRACE HOSPITAL SC II P O R T A G E A V E N U E SC I Sturgeon Creek I Sturgeon Creek II Leave the Moving to Us! Call Santana at 204.202.1870 WORRY FREE MOVE! Ask About Our Gracious Retirement Living Assisted Living A Place to Call Home At Your Service: • Transportation for Scheduled Outings and Medical Appointments • 24 Hour Nursing Care • Weekly Light Housekeeping • Staff 24/7 • Pet Friendly • Enriched Activities • Full Service Dining • Delicious, Home-Cooked Meals • Month to Month Leases 707 Setter Street, Winnipeg, MB Where Caring is Our Number One Concern™ PROUDLY CANADIAN www.allseniorscare.com FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 2024WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM ● A5 NEWS I TOP NEWS Police cleared in use of force after officers hurt in crash THE Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba says police used a reasonable amount of force when arresting a suspect after a stolen truck col- lided with a police cruiser, seriously injuring two officers. Officers spotted the Lincoln Mark LT near Ink- ster Boulevard and St. Cross Street shortly before the crash, which happened at Main Street and Belmont Avenue at about 4 a.m. on June 7, 2023. The IIU said in a news release Thursday that the driver of the truck tried to flee after the colli- sion and that police used a Taser on the man dur- ing a “brief use-of-force encounter.” After taking him to a police station, officers noticed he had suffered “visible injuries,” and an ambulance was called to take him to Health Sciences Centre. The IIU determined the use of force was “rea- sonable” and said the matter “is now closed.” Police said in June that one of the officers suf- fered particularly serious injuries. McKae Ledingham, who was 25 when he was arrested, was on bail at the time. He was charged with two counts each of dan- gerous driving causing bodily harm and criminal negligence causing bodily harm and single counts of resisting arrest, possessing a stolen vehicle and failing to comply with a bail condition. Leding- ham, who is from the Interlake village of River- ton, was prohibited from being in the driver’s seat of a vehicle without the owner’s consent when he was released on bail May 23. The truck was stolen in Stonewall the week be- fore the crash, police said in June. fpcity@freepress.mb.ca WRHA to offer meningococcal vaccine clinics THE Winnipeg Regional Health Authority will host vaccine clinics for younger children to offer updated protection against meningococcal dis- ease. Children who are one-year-old previously re- ceived a vaccine that offered protection against one type of the bacteria. An updated vaccine cov- ers four types of the bacteria. The updated vaccine is recommended for 12-month-old infants and kids born between Jan. 1, 2020, and Feb. 28, 2023. The health authority said in a news release Thursday that the updated vaccine is not new and is used as a routine vaccine for chil- dren in Grade 6. Health-care pro- viders began offering the updated vaccine for younger children in March. Kids who received the previous vaccine can still get the updated one. The first clinic is on Saturday and the last is May 16. The list of dates and locations is available at http://wfp.to/yqe. Children younger than five years old are at the greatest risk of severe illness from the bacterial infection. Meningococcal disease is rare but can cause long-term problems such as brain damage, developmental delay and long-term disability from severe complications. “Meningococcal disease is a very serious illness which can cause swelling of the brain. Chil- dren can become very ill, re- quiring hospitalization,” WRHA public health physician Dr. Lerly Luo said in the release. “One in 10 cases may end in death, even with prompt medical treatment. That’s why vaccination is so im- portant to protect our young chil- dren.” Appointments can be made at http://wfp.to/yq2 or by calling 1-844-626-8222. Walk-in service is also available at the public vaccine clinics, and family doctors and pediatricians can also provide the shots at their own offices. Measles vaccines will be available at the public clinics for children who are not up to date. fpcity@freepress.mb.ca MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS FILES Winnipeg Police Service investigators at the scene of the crash at Main Street and Belmont Avenue on June 7. There were three British military veterans, an Australian beloved for her big hugs and relentless work ethic and a Polish volunteer heralded by the group as “builder, plumber, welder, electrician, engineer, boss, confidant, friend and teammate.” The team had established a “de- confliction” plan ahead of time with Israeli forces, so the military would know when they would travel and what route they would take. Aid organizations use complex sys- tems to try to keep their teams safe. Typically, they send an advance plan to COGAT, the Israeli defence agency responsible for Palestinian civilian matters, which then shares it with the Israeli army, said a military official. As deliveries unfold, the aid groups can communicate with the military in real time, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with army briefing rules. Workers for World Food Kitchen car- ry GPS transmitters that track their locations, according to an organization employee who spoke on condition of anonymity because he didn’t have permission to talk to the media. Many relief workers have expressed concerns about the deconfliction system. “It hasn’t been working well,” said Chris Skopec, a Washington-based official with the aid group Project Hope, citing poor communication and coordination. “And when it doesn’t work well, people die.” 10:28 P.M. Things began to go wrong a few miles from the pier. An Israeli officer, watching from a drone, saw what he thought was a Hamas gunman climb on top of one truck and fire into the air. Gunmen are a daily part of life in Gaza, which has been run by Hamas since 2007. They could be Hamas fight- ers, members of Hamas-supervised police or privately employed guards. Some relief groups hire armed guards, aid officials said, often plain- clothed men who brandish guns or large sticks to beat back hungry Pales- tinians trying to snatch supplies. The World Central Kitchen some- times uses armed guards, the em- ployee said, though it was not clear if they had been employed for the April 1 convoy. The employee and other aid officials insisted their guards were not part of Hamas or its militant ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but did not elaborate on the guards’ affiliation. Despite such denials, it is unlikely anyone riding on top of an aid truck wouldn’t have at least tacit permission from Hamas. Israeli military spokesperson Maj. Nir Dinar said soldiers try to distin- guish between armed security guards and Hamas militants when determin- ing targets. He said he could not rule out the possibility that the armed men accompanying the World Central Kitchen convoy were security guards. 10:46 P.M. In grainy aerial footage that the Israeli military showed to journalists, people swarmed around the convoy when it arrived at a World Central Kitchen warehouse in the city of Deir al-Balah. The military said two to four of the men were armed, though that was not clear in the aerial footage shown to journalists. 10:55 P.M. The trucks remained at the warehouse but the three World Central Kitchen vehicles began driving south to take the workers to their accommodations. Another vehicle that had joined the convoy — which the Israelis say held gunmen — drove north toward another warehouse. Planning messages sent by World Central Kitchen had made clear that the aid workers would not remain with the trucks but would travel on by car. But Israeli officials say the soldiers monitoring the convoy had not read the messages. Then, an Israeli officer believed he saw someone step into a World Central Kitchen vehicle with a gun. “The state of mind at that time was the humanitarian mission had ended and that they were tracking Hamas vehicles with at least one suspected gunman,” said retired Gen. Yoav Har-Evan, who led the military’s inves- tigation into the strike. Because of the darkness, Israeli of- ficials said the World Central Kitchen emblems on the cars’ roofs were not visible. 11:09 P.M. The first missile struck one of the armoured cars as it drove along the coastal road. Aid workers fled the damaged vehicle for the other ar- moured car, which Israel struck two minutes later. The survivors piled into the third vehicle. It, too, was soon hit. Abdel Razzaq Abutaha, the brother of the slain driver, said other aid work- ers called him after the blasts, telling him to check on his brother. He repeatedly called his brother’s phone. Eventually a man answered, and said he’d found the phone around 200 metres from one of the bombed- out cars. “Everyone in the car was killed,” the man told Abdel Razzaq. Abdel Razzaq had believed his broth- er’s work would be safe. “It is an American international institution with top co-ordination,” he said. “What is there to fear?” THE AFTERMATH When the sun rose the next morning, the burned husks of the three vehicles were spread along a mile or so of Al Rashid Street. Israel quickly admitted it had mistakenly killed the aid workers and launched an investigation. “It’s a tragedy,” military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told report- ers. “It shouldn’t have happened. And we will make sure that it won’t happen again.” On Friday, Israel said it had dis- missed two officers and reprimanded three more for their roles, saying they had mishandled critical informa- tion and violated the army’s rules of engagement, which require multiple reasons to identify a target. In the wake of the deadly strike, Is- rael and COGAT have set up a special “war room” where COGAT and mili- tary officials sit together to streamline the co-ordination process. Israel’s promises have done little to quiet growing international anger over its offensive. More than 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the war began, including at least 30 killed in the line of duty, according to the UN. Many aid workers noted the convoy strike stood out only because six of those killed were not Palestinian. Aid workers are, in many ways, a hard community to define. Some are experts who earn a good living travelling from disaster to disaster. Some are volunteers looking for a way to do some good. Some are driven by ambition, others by faith. In Gaza, though, everyone under- stood the risks. John Flickinger’s son Jacob, a Cana- dian military veteran, was a member of the convoy’s security team. “He volunteered to go into Gaza and he was pretty clear-eyed,” Flickinger told the AP. “We discussed it, that it was a chaotic situation.” While World Central Kitchen and a few other aid groups suspended oper- ations in Gaza after the attacks, many of the largest organizations, including Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam International, barely slowed down. The convoy strike “wasn’t outside of things that we could have predicted, unfortunately,” said Ruth James, a U.K.-based Oxfam regional human- itarian co-ordinator. Except for one cancelled trip, Oxfam staff simply kept working. “What keeps them going?” she asked. “I can only guess.” — The Associated Press FATAL ● FROM A1 ISMAEL ABU DAYYAH / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES A damaged aid convoy vehicle with the logo of the World Central Kitchen hit by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. ;