A Somali national living in Winnipeg has been charged with human smuggling after a vehicle with eight foreign nationals from Africa inside was pulled over in southern Manitoba last month.
The driver, 35-year-old Abshir Mohamed Osman, is charged under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. He was released on several conditions and is scheduled to attend court in Emerson on Oct. 16.
The eight passengers were arrested under the Customs Act. Five of the eight passengers — four men and a woman — are from Chad. Two men are from Sudan, and a woman is from Guinea. They ranged in age from 19 to 48.
The RCMP’s regional integrated border enforcement team, working with counterparts from the U.S. Border Patrol, was told about people crossing into Canada west of the Gretna border crossing at about 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 22.
Officers saw people walk from the U.S. into Canada and get picked up by a man driving a rental vehicle.
Sgt. Lance Goldau, head of the border enforcement team in Manitoba, said in a news release Monday that police were able to interview the passengers with the help of officers who speak French and Arabic. They were later turned over to the Canada Border Services Agency for processing.
A Winnipeg man was charged this winter after a similar incident where a vehicle with eight foreign nationals from Africa inside was pulled over. RCMP stopped the vehicle on McGillivray Boulevard inside Winnipeg early on Feb. 22. Seven of the passengers were from Chad, and the other was from Mali.
The driver, Abdi Hassan Ali, was arrested for human smuggling. He was 30 at the time.
Saleh Youssouf, a then-49-year-old man from Calgary, was charged with human smuggling in Manitoba after he allegedly picked up seven men from Chad who walked across the border near Emerson on Jan. 27.
Four men from Chad were found by RCMP after crossing the border near Emerson in December. One suffered serious weather-related injuries.
RCMP said this winter that Manitoba officers had intercepted an increasing number of asylum seekers from Chad, a country in north-central Africa, amid a political and security crisis.
A family of four from India froze to death in a field east of Emerson while trying to walk into the U.S. in January 2022. Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife, Vaishaliben, 37, their daughter, Vihangi, 11, and son, Dharmik, 3, were found dead only metres from the border. The Patels were trying to emigrate to the U.S., where they had family.
Changes made to the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement in 2023 mean people who walk into either country between ports of entry are to be turned back if they are found within 14 days of their arrival.
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca