This is not the first time I have written about tragedies at Grassy Narrows Reserve. Known in Ojibwa as Ausubpeeschoseewagong First Nations, it is located north of Kenora along the Wabigoon-English River system.

As a result of the now closed Dryden Chemical Company’s decision to dump more than 9,000 kg of mercury into the river in the 1960s, an overly large percentage of indigenous people have suffered the ravages of mercury poisoning that has crept forward malignantly through the generations affecting men, woman, children and babies to this very day.

Diseases and chronic symptoms ranging from muscular dystrophy, speech defects, paralysis, mental illness and even death have all been associated with mercury poisoning.

Seventeen-year-old Calvin Kokopenace was a member of the Grassy Narrows reserve. In 2014 Calvin succumbed to complications from mercury poisoning and muscular dystrophy. His death devastated his family, especially so his 14-year-old sister, Azraya Ackabee-Kokopenace.

Azraya had already displayed signs of depression and instability. Alcohol became a daily part of her life; even more so following the death of her brother. In and out of foster homes, at the time of Calvin’s death Azraya was living in the custody of the Anishinaabe-Abanooji Child and Family Service. Some in the community feared the same mercury poisoning that took her brother’s life was also affecting Azraya’s mental stability.

After a suicide attempt that almost succeeded in March 2015, Azraya was once again in living in the custody of family services, before returning to her loving family after seven months.

All too often when dealing with mental disorders, love and support is not enough. Azraya continued to spiral out of control. She was a habitual runaway, severely depressed and known to be potentially suicidal. On April 5, police intercepted Azarya driving a car without a licence. This led to her being once again placed in care, this time with the Kenora Children’s Aid Society. Her parents signed her into custody with the belief she would be sent for the treatment she so badly needed. This was not to be the case.

On April 15, Azarya was picked up by the OPP and dropped off at the Kenora District Hospital. Police refused to elaborate, though a few weeks earlier there was an altercation between Azraya and an OPP officer caught on video, which has put into question physical confrontation techniques used by police most often against indigenous children. Azraya disappeared from the Kenora hospital just prior to midnight. Her body was found by the First Nations Bear Clan Patrol less than two blocks from the hospital two days later. They believe she committed suicide.

Azarya is not the only indigenous teenager from the area to be found dead. In fact, she was the second in a month. Sixteen-year-old Delaine Copenace from nearby Onigaming First Nations was found in the water by a wharf in Lake of the Woods after missing for three weeks. Questions remain as to the circumstances of her death.

There have been other suicide attempts in the last few weeks as well.

Undoubtedly, as many believe, the system failed these young people. It is also very likely their indigenous heritage made it easier for authorities to act in a manner different than had these children not been aboriginal. Indeed, it seems that after Azraya disappeared the on-call CAS worker whom Azraya trusted never received a call from police, or the hospital informing her she disappeared.

This is a tangled web of complexities. Yet a few things are more than clear. These tragedies are occurring in an area where mercury poisoning has impacted the lives and well-being of generations of indigenous families; suicide in the Grassy Narrows reserve, given its size, is reaching tragic proportions among its young inhabitants, there has been at best a benign neglect by police and child welfare authorities.

As Canadians we should be demanding answers. You can be sure that had these tragedies occurred to young people in Toronto’s tony Forest Hill or Calgary’s Mount Royal the hue and cry would be rightly deafening. Sadly, in Kenora the silence is even more deafening.

Bernie M. Farber is executive director of Mosaic Institute.