The RCMP emblem on the side of a police cruiser. Photo: APTN News file
The RCMP says a week-long search for a missing 14-year-old girl from We’koqma’q First Nation has come to an end.
Police say they located the girl early Saturday morning, and that the man with her is in custody.
“At approximately 11:30 pm last night, the RCMP Air Services reported a fire in an isolated location in the Canoe Lake area [of Cape Breton],” says an RCMP statement. “RCMP officers on the ground made their way to this area and at 1 a.m. they located the missing girl and the man she was believed to be with. Both were taken into police custody without incident and transported out of the wooded area. The youth has been released, the man remains in custody and the investigation is ongoing.”
The girl had been reported missing on Aug. 13 and was last seen in the Mi’kmaq community of Eskasoni, also on Cape Breton Island. RCMP, Cape Breton Regional Police and family and community members had been searching for her since then.
RCMP said in a release earlier this week that she was believed to be with a 47-year-old man. Police came under fire for not issuing an Amber Alert, but they maintained they believed the teen was not taken against her will.
On Wednesday RCMP said they believed the man and girl were in the Canoe Lake area.
Early Thursday morning police issued an emergency alert to residents in Cape Breton.
Family members, as well as Nova Scotia Native Women Association President Annie Bernard, confirmed on social media early Saturday morning that the youth had been found.
