Dr. Elana Fric honoured at Toronto domestic violence vigil

While the death of Dr. Elana Fric has rocked Ontario's medical community and sparked conversations about intimate partner violence, a domestic violence advocate said that these kinds of deaths are"all too common."

"It's important we take this moment to honour her, but also to draw attention to the epidemic that is violence against women," saidMohini Datta-Ray, executive director of the North York Women's Shelter.

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A candlelight vigil held outside Queen's Park Wednesday paid tribute to Fric and "all those who have experienced abuse."

Radical loss

"We lose women to violence every six days in the country," Datta-Raysaid to those gathered in the cold."It is in this context we must understandElanaFric'sdeath. Her death has received the attention that the murders of hundreds of women also killed at the hands of their violent partners in this country do not."

"Let us use this moment to act to make sure the outrageous tragedy of domestic violence is one that we stop in our lifetime."

From November 2015 to November 2016, data compiled by the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses shows at least 26 women in Ontario died due to "femicide," or the"intentional murder of women because they are women."

Many of these women were allegedly killed by their husbands, boyfriends or other intimate partners, the data shows.

"No ethnic group, no socio-economic group, is free of this problem," saidMarc Hull-Jacquin, executive director of Shelter Movers, a volunteer-based organization that helps move people experiencing abuse.

The service organized Wednesday night's vigil.

"Although violence of this nature, statistically, might occur to women of colour or women in poverty, Dr. Fric's death shows us no community is immune to this issue," Hull-Jacquin added.

Fricbeing laid to rest on Saturday

Asecond vigil inFric'shonourisbeing held on Thursday night in Windsor, Ont.,near where she grew up in the town ofTecumseh.

Her funeral is also being held in Windsor this Saturday at St. Francis of Assisi Croatian Catholic Church.

JosephFric, her father, told the CBC there will be two busloads of doctors coming to attend the service.

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Fric, a respected family physician in Scarborough, Ont. and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Toronto,died from strangulation and blunt-force trauma.

Her husband, Toronto neurosurgeon Dr. MohammedShamji, is in custody on first-degree murder charges. He hadpreviously been charged with one count of assault and two counts of uttering death threatsin 2005.

Fric was planning to divorce Shamji before her death.