A small group of people evacuated from the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation due to wildfire risk are walking hundreds of kilometers to their community in protest of the treatment they say they received from the Canadian Red Cross.
The group of seven began the 625-kilometre walk northwest from Winnipeg to The Pas on Highway 6 on Friday and vowed to keep going in hopes of raising awareness of their plight.
“We think we can do it,” Edward Bear said in a roadside interview near the community of Moosehorn, about 200 kilometers northwest of Winnipeg.
“I think we can be successful without the services of these people if our leadership could step up and support us,” Bear said.
Bear and others in the group said they had been mistreated. Travis Bighetty told the CBC that a hotel where they were put up was infested with cockroaches, bed bugs and rodents.
Julianne (Betty) Dumas said the kids are locked in with nothing to do. She believes the fire danger in the community has decreased to the point where people can start coming back.
“We would like our kids to be home,” Dumas said. “I’ve been sitting in a room for three days, and all I heard was crying. All my grandchildren, different grandchildren crying. Waiting for a room. Waiting for them to go to bed.”
Dumas said she believes the Red Cross is doing its best, but ultimately it feels disrespectful.
At a news conference Friday, a First Nation emergency management official said some accommodations provided to evacuees were unacceptable. Kaitlynn Brightnose said some rooms had cockroaches, used syringes and mold. Others appeared to have dried blood on the floors.
Advocating for better treatment from the Red Cross was to no avail, Brightnose said. When he asked for community members to move to other hotels where he learned there were empty rooms, Brightnose said the Canadian Red Cross told him it wouldn’t be possible to move them all to a new hotel.
Band member Edward Bear says the Red Cross placing evacuees in “run-down hotels” is unacceptable. (CBC)
Evacuations in Mathias Colomb, located about 700 kilometers northwest of Winnipeg, began on July 14 when a large wildfire swept through and sent plumes of smoke into the remote community. About 2,000 people have been removed from the community.
When asked about the complaints raised by the walkers, a spokesman for the Canadian Red Cross said in an emailed statement Sunday that the evacuees have been through a traumatic experience, and reiterated the agency’s response to the CBC queries Friday.
“Being hundreds of miles from their home and not knowing when they will be coming home is incredibly stressful. Our team want to provide the best possible support to community members while they are away from home,” spokeswoman Laura Ellis said.
In addition to the Mathias Colomb evacuees, the organization is also supporting 1,500 residents of the Peguis First Nation who were displaced in May due to widespread flooding in their community.
“The consistent hotel space in Winnipeg available to the Red Cross for this response is at capacity,” Ellis said. The organization has set up a shelter at the University of Winnipeg that is clean and safe, he said. Its use has been offered to those dealing with inadequate hotel rooms for which there are no substitutes.
“When community members have raised concerns about the condition of their hotel rooms, we have offered shelter access due to the lack of available hotel accommodation. We are continuously working to find other hotel rooms for those people, but until then, you have space available,” Ellis said.
LOOK | Wildfires prompt evacuation of First Nation in northern Manitoba:
Wildfires prompt evacuation of First Nation in northern Manitoba
An out-of-control wildfire in northern Manitoba has forced nearly 2,000 people to flee their homes in the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation.