A Canadian driver charged with the fatal hit-and-run of a young Ukrainian child was sentenced to a year of house arrest by a Quebec provincial court on Monday, bringing a legal end to the sad story of a refugee family who had escaped the brutal Russian invaders of their homeland in 2022, only to see their daughter killed abroad.
In December of 2022, less than a year after her mother Halyna Lehenkovska sought refugee status in Canada with her three children, to rebuild her family life near Montreal while her husband stayed behind to fight the Russians, her daughter Mariia was struck and killed by a car as she was walking to school.
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Juan Manuel Becerra Garcia, 45, was charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident, as he failed to stop after allegedly being blinded by sun glare. He was sentenced on Monday to a year of house arrest.
The outpouring from the community for the Ukrainian family was described by the Canadian press as overwhelming.
“I am very touched by the reaction of Quebec to this tragedy that has affected my family,” said Lehenkovska, speaking in French during a public memorial service at the St. Sophie Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral.
Michael Shwec, president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress for Quebec, said Montreal’s Ukrainian community is still in shock.
“A seven-year-old girl went to school in the morning and then, bam, it’s over. It’s very difficult to accept,” Shwec said.
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Approximately 300,000 Ukrainian refugees were granted asylum after Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Mariia’s father, Andrii Lehenkovsky, was fighting for Ukraine’s territorial defense forces when she was killed, and he traveled to Montreal from the front lines at the time to bury her.
An online fundraising campaign in her name raised more than $150,000 in six days after the news of her tragic death broke.
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