A North End church community is calling for tougher sanctions on arsonists after a local church was gutted and a couple died in a fire last month.
About 100 people gathered outside the House of Covenant International Church on Main Street Saturday evening to remember Geda Wodisso, 49, and Zenabu Gula, 38, a Kenyan couple who were living above the church at the time of the fire.
The group also called on more protections for churches.
NICOLE BUFFIE / FREE PRESS
House of Covenant International Church pastor Johannes Engida.
“We are saying ‘no’ to this kind of attack,” said House of Covenant pastor Johannes Engida. “Churches need to be protected at all costs and there needs to be stricter punishment for these types of incidents.”
The building at 1410 Main St., which has suites above the church, was set ablaze in the early hours of Sept. 14. First responders found the victims in one of the suites and gave them emergency care before they were taken to hospital.
They later died, the Winnipeg Police Service said at the time.
Alex Donald Courchene, 28, was arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of arson with disregard for human life in connection to the incident.
Engida says the church had survived two previous fires, which he described as arson attempts. The insurance company declared the building a total loss after last month’s blaze, Engida said.
On Saturday, the building was still covered in char marks and glass littered the sidewalk from the suite’s blown-out windows.
“People need to have freedom to worship and without any fear of any violence, fear of any kind of incidents like this,” Engida said.
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MP Terry Duguid at Saturday’s House of Covenant rally.
The House of Covenant is attended by Christians from the Ethiopian and Eritrean communities.
In October, B.C. MP Marc Dalton introduced a private member’s bill to increase the penalty for people who set fire to places of worship.
The Anti-Arson Act would carry a mandatory minimum five-year sentence for a first offence and at least seven years behind bars for any subsequent offences.
“Canada needs to protect places of worship from arson,” Dalton told the House of Commons at the time.
MP Terry Duguid attended the event and told the crowd he is working with government officials to address the issue.
“I know our provincial counterparts are very concerned about some of these senseless acts of violence which your community has experienced” he said. “Our government is working to protect people of faith where they worship.”
NICOLE BUFFIE / FREE PRESS
The crowd gathered outside the House of Covenant church on Saturday.
The rally was also to ask for donations to rebuild the church community elsewhere.
The church has started a GoFundMe for their rebuilding efforts, which raised $1,000 as of Saturday. In the meantime, the congregation has been gathering at The Meeting Place church on Smith Street.
nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca
Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer
Nicole Buffie is a multimedia producer who reports for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom in 2023. Read more about Nicole.
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