Latest news with #Ancaster
Hamilton Spectator
3 days ago
- Hamilton Spectator
‘A needle in a haystack': Hamilton family scours Panama jungle for missing dad and kids
Walking across a narrow bridge in northwest Panama — a low, tea-coloured river to her left and boundless jungle rising to her right — Nagham Azzam-Iqbal pauses to reflect on the task ahead. 'We're searching for a needle in a haystack.' The Ancaster woman is thousands of kilometres from home in a desperate effort to find her brother-in-law, Ghussan Iqbal, who vanished into the dense forests near the border of Panama and Costa Rica with his two young children last week. Azzam-Iqbal said Iqbal, 31, graduated from McMaster University and lived on the Hamilton Mountain before he moved to the Panamanian city of Changuinola about a year ago, just before his wife, Fatima, gave birth to their son. He went missing with his seven-month-old son and two-year-old daughter on May 21, when Fatima woke up to find them gone. 'We just came as quick as we could,' Azzam-Iqbal said over video call Thursday, tilting her phone to show her husband, Sulman Iqbal, as they walked on the bridge Thursday to meet a search team that includes police, firefighters and several members of Fatima's Panama-based family. The couple flew to Costa Rica on the night of May 22 before crossing into Panama by bus and foot the following day. Azzam-Iqbal, 31, said her brother-in-law has untreated mental-health issues. Prior to moving to Panama, he was hospitalized at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton for an episode of psychosis, she added. 'We know Ghussan has psychosis and during psychotic episodes, he tends to disappear,' she said. 'He's someone who's unwell and vulnerable, and he has even more vulnerable children with him.' Despite reported sightings — local authorities have put out multiple Amber Alerts — the search for Iqbal, his daughter Nousaybah and his son Musa has so far turned up naught, with the three believed to be somewhere in the jungle. Azzam-Iqbal said the terrain in the area — tall trees, thick greenery and tangled vines surround a few narrow mountain roads flanked by a river — has made the situation 'dire.' As has the weather: rain and humid heat, north of 30 C, is forecast in Changuinola for the next seven days. There are other things that are out of the family's control. Changuinola is sparsely populated with just over 30,000 residents, many of whom live in remote, tucked away Indigenous communities. Meanwhile, Bocas Del Toro, the province where the city is located, recently declared a state of emergency amid protests against the local government. 'Can you see the blockade right behind me?' Azzam-Iqbal said, pointing to police and barricades at one end of the bridge. While local police are helping with the search, Azzam-Iqbal said they lack resources. She said they don't have any search dogs, night-vision goggles or drones. Instead, they've relied on more traditional means: boots on the ground, megaphones, flashlights and word of mouth. 'The people in the remote Indigenous communities, when they see us, they come running to tell us where they spotted him,' she said. 'It's not a well-resourced search, but it's one where everyone's invested in the well-being of these kids and Ghussan.' 'We have no idea how a seven-month-old and two-year-old would survive. There's a lot of vegetation and farmers in the area — maybe he's stealing fruit to feed them. We don't want to think of the worst outcome,' she added. As they continue the search, the family is also pleading with Canadian officials to step in — Iqbal and his two-year-old daughter are both citizens. Azzam-Iqbal said Global Affairs Canada has assigned them a case manager from Latin America to help liaise with local authorities. They've also provided consular services, 'but they said they can't interfere with a foreign investigation. 'Emotional support, but nothing tangible,' Azzam-Iqbal said. In a statement, Global Affairs said it's aware of the missing-person cases but that local law enforcement is responsible investigating such reports in their jurisdiction. 'Consular officials are actively engaged with local authorities and are providing consular assistance to the family,' a spokesperson for the agency said. 'The safety and security of Canadian citizens abroad is a top priority for the Government of Canada.' No other information was shared. Azzam-Iqbal said the family is pleading with anyone who might have had contact recently with Ghussan to contact the family or Hamilton police, who she noted have been made aware of the situation. 'Our number-one priority is the children, but we want him to know that we're here for him and we want to support him,' she said.
CTV News
23-05-2025
- CTV News
Driver facing charge after collision on Highway 403
Two pickup trucks are seen in a centre ditch along Highway 403 near Ancaster, Ont. on May 23, 2025. (Courtesy: OPP) A driver has been charged following a collision on Highway 403 near Highway 6 in Ancaster. Ontario Provincial Police officers were called to the crash involving two pickup trucks at 5:55 a.m. They said one of them had been hauling a trailer. The two trucks rolled into the centre ditch and one person was taken to hospital with minor injuries. Images from the scene, shared online by OPP, showed the black pickup truck on its side. Meanwhile, a white and blue pickup truck was photographed upside down. Its roof had significant damage. The driver of a white pickup truck was charged with careless driving.
CBC
13-05-2025
- CBC
Hamilton woman thanks community for support after husbands death on the job
Lina El Ali's husband Nabil El Ahmed died on April 4, 2025 when a driver struck him and a co-worker as they were working on a road in Hamilton's Ancaster area. In May, El Ali told CBC Hamilton she's grateful for the support her community and wants to raise money to help others in El Ahmed's honour.
BBC News
05-03-2025
- General
- BBC News
Roman cemetery found at Peterborough roadworks site 'unique'
Archaeologists who excavated a Roman cemetery say it is "unique" due to the range of different types of burial and grave goods, including bracelets buried with young dig team has been showing the BBC some of the jewellery discovered at the site at Wansford, near Peterborough, where the A47 is being personal treasures of those buried have been provisionally dated to the late Roman Britain period (3rd-4th Centuries), and include a solid stone coffin containing a corpse set in Archaeology's Jessica Lowther said further investigation of the artefacts would help "answer questions about those that lived here". One of the significant finds is jewellery found in the grave of the child, who was believed to have been about five years old, giving a possible indication of their wealth and high team said it was still unclear what community the cemetery served, as no evidence of other settlement buildings had been found in the immediate Machin, senior specialist at Headland, said the team had been studying the finds at their base at Silsoe in Bedfordshire."It's a collection of bracelets all found with the same child. What it tells us is what people thought about them and what they thought was appropriate to go into the grave," she said."It's a little picture of the community and how they were burying their people."The collection in the child's grave is similar to another grave and suggests a connection." Ms Machin said they could use DNA to establish links."Looking at skeletons we will be able to find out if they are related and what relationships there might be with the rest of the population," she said. The solid stone coffin, or sarchophagus, weighed the same as a small caravan, and featured in the latest series of the BBC's Digging for Britain programme. It was made of Ancaster stone, so the team said it might have been transported 30 miles south from the Lincolnshire village that gives its name to that type of stone, indicating the high status of the person buried in it. Ms Lowther said its lid was made using Barnack stone, which is local to the Peterborough area, therefore it was possible the original lid may have been broken and this was a replacement."This is how we tell stories about people that lived everyday lives. We don't [always] have history books written about us, but archaeology can tell us those stories," she said. She added that the different burial practices in such a small area made the cemetery "unique". These included:the solid stone coffin containing the gypsuma cist burial - using separate slabs of stone forming a coffincremationsgoods placed at both the heads or feet of the skeletondecapitated skeletonsiron nails, suggesting wooden coffins, since decomposed Chris Griffin, National Highways programme lead for the A47 project, said the finds would add to the tapestry of knowledge about the area, including the discovery of a small section of Roman road nearby, which the stone coffin may have been transported on."It's fascinating that we found a Roman road while we were building a road. Isn't that just great? "We didn't know that the road was there but the find shows us how important the A1 and A47 has been, going back to Roman times."Ms Lowther said: "Transporting the gypsum coffin at all would have been a major feat with lifting and manoeuvring, but then to add 30 miles of journey is quite a lot."Pulling the cart on a Roman road, which would have acted a little bit like a cobbled street, would not have been the smoothest." Ms Machin said it was "early stages" in piecing together information about how long the site was in use for burials, its place in the surrounding landscape and the stories of the individuals laid to rest there."What we have got now are all clues. Now we have a huge list of questions and we're moving on to the next stage to see how many answers we can get," she of the items are currently available for the public to see, and Headland said it was too early in the process for any decisions to be made about putting things on reports of all the archaeology found will be uploaded to Peterborough's Historic Environment Record, the team said. Follow Peterborough news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
