5 family members feared dead after fire on Oneida Nation near London, Ontario

Source: www.thestar.com - Thursday, December 15, 2016
The chief of the Oneida Nation of the Thames lashed out at the federal government over requests for better housing that went unanswered, as a community waited for news of a family of five who are feared dead after a fire at a home on the First Nation near London, Ont. “The particular property that was engulfed was an older property and it was just basically kindling,” Oneida Chief Randall Phillips said. “We’ve got many houses in that kind of condition.” Phillips said that fires are all too common on reserves as “First Nations housing is in a crisis.” “We were denied that funding. They decided that northern communities had more need than southern communities and all the money they had appointed for this purpose went up North.” The names of those unaccounted for after the fire on Wednesday near London, Ont. have not been released, but Phillips identified them as members of the same family. Bodies of an adult and a child have been found, Oneida fire chief Elliott Cornelius said. The children’s mother and four siblings survived the fire and are now homeless, said Adrienna Antone of the N’Amerind (London) Friendship Centre . The survivors include boys aged 6, 8 and 9, a 12-year-old girl and their mother, according to a statement on the centre’s Facebook page. “It’s hard to wrap your mind around, what they’re going through,” said Antone, who’s originally from the small, tight-knit First Nations community of 2,300. “There’s four kids le

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