Montreal’s Muslim Maghrebi community sounds alarm on deadly gangs recruiting youth

MONTREAL — Members of Montreal’s Muslim and Maghrebi communities gathered at a city park on Saturday afternoon to decry – and fight back against – what they described as a “scourge” of street gangs recruiting youth to carry out criminal acts.

Several dozen participants gathered in Wilfrid-Bastien Park in the city’s St. Leonard borough , including children carrying blank, black placards suggesting mourning.

“The Muslim community is mobilizing,” said Hadjira Belkacem, president and founder of Muslim Sepulcher Association of Quebec, a group that supports mourning Muslim families.

“We have had enough of seeing our children get massacred … We are enraged, and we are in mourning,” Belkacem, who organized the event, told those in attendance.

Elected officials, parents and other community members took the stage to sound the alarm following several recent incidents in the province, including the death of a 14-year-old boy of Algerian descent who media reports say was found near a Hells Angels-linked bunker in Frampton, Que., about 50 kilometres southeast of Quebec City.

Provincial police have not confirmed the boy’s identity or cause of death, but multiple media reports say the victim fled his home in St. Leonard, where the gathering took place, and was reportedly sent to attack the bunker. The Sûreté du Québec declined to comment on the case on Saturday.

Borough Mayor Michel Bissonnet called on all levels of government to intervene.

“We need the help of the city centre and help from the provincial and federal governments,” he said.

Bissonnet said the additional funding is needed to put more intervention workers on the ground and provide more services to keep children out of trouble.

Quebec’s Public Security Minister François Bonnardel has publicly acknowledged the issue of alleged gang recruitment in recent weeks, describing organized crime groups enlisting youth in their activities as “vile.”

“Like many Quebecers, what I hear coming out of Frampton shocks me,” he posted on X on Sept. 19. “It is vile for street gangs to enlist young people — children — to do their dirty work.”

Belkacem says she has heard from multiple parents, especially those with roots in northern Africa, afraid that their kids may be targeted.

“It starts at 12, 13, 14-years-old. Street gangs ask them to steal cars, go out and kill, that sort of thing… They recruit kids to do their dirty work,” she said in an interview on Saturday before the event.

“We know because we’ve been called by several families asking for help and telling us that, ‘my child has been recruited into a gang,’” she said, adding that Quebecers of Algerian and Moroccan descent have been especially affected. “Unfortunately, there have been many deaths of young people in our community.”

Nazar Saaty, a lawyer who volunteers with the Muslim Sepulcher Association of Quebec, works with young criminal offenders. He said youth are being recruited “at an explosive rate,” and families fear youth protection services may take their children away if they speak up.

Saaty argued criminal groups are exploiting vulnerabilities in Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act.

“They’re saying: Listen, I’m not going to commit a crime, I’ll send some youngster to do it. The worst that’ll get is be put in a centre … whereas I’ll go to prison,” he said.

“My solution wouldn’t be to strengthen or crack down on young offenders. It would be to introduce legislation within the Criminal Code for adults who recruit these minors to have very, very stiff penalties.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.

Joe Bongiorno, The Canadian Press