Vigil for missing women

Aboriginal community leaders and family members of victims held a solemn ceremony off Westside Road Tuesday to remember missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls.

About 60 people attended the "Sisters in Spirit” vigil, hosted by the Okanagan Indian Band and one of many being held across the country. The gatherings served to raise awareness and to provide support to families who have lost a loved one.

Red dresses were hung on a fence in remembrance of lives lost.

"I think it's really important  to acknowledge and take time to honour our stolen sisters,” said Coola Louis, band councillor. “A lot of this goes unspoken and unaddressed and it's so importatnt to raise awareness and point to the atrocities that exist in this first world country that we call Canada.”

"My mother was stabbed to death in her apartment on Commercial Drive in 1988 and to this day we never found out who did it,” said Joan Vedan of Vernon. “Hopefully one day they will find out who did it."

The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) has created a database of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls.

The association says 67 per cent of the cases are deaths as the result of homicide or negligence.

OKIB band councillor Allan Louis said 1,200 Aboriginal women had gone missing across Canada over the past 30 years.