Aju Iroaga

**Aju Chukwudiebere Iroaga** was a young man who vanished while planting trees in the Canadian wilderness in 2006.

## Background

Aju was born in Nigeria in 1980 to parents Nkechi and Nwab Iroaga. His father was a psychology professor and his mother was a teacher. He had a brother, Echere, and three sisters Ijenna, Uchenwa and Ozi.

Aju spent his early childhood split between Nigeria, where Nkechi lived, and Canada, where Nwab worked. He attended primary school in Nigeria where he was described as a happy child. However, when he moved to Canada and began a junior high school in suburban Toronto he was bullied for his accent, slender build and reserved personality. This caused him to become lonely, sad and often angry. Aju moved high schools in the hope that his situation would improve, but he ended up getting in a fight with another student over a basketball in a gymnasium and the police were called, although Aju escaped a jail sentence.

Like all of his siblings, Aju was academically gifted and hardworking. He earned good grades which allowed him to study chemical engineering at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. However, in his second year, he was charged with assault after a dorm-room fight with another student and ended up spending a month in prison. Being arrested prompted Aju to work on his anger management skills. He learned to meditate, tried yoga, running and composing music and became a vegetarian to help him better manage his emotions. He also began saving money to visit the village where he grew up in Nigeria, and he recalled finding a sense of peace and happiness.

The summer before Aju’s disappearance he had found work planting trees for A&M Reforestation. In the spring of 2006, he returned early from a family trip in Nigeria to work the same job again.

## Case

Aju was last seen 67 kilometers from the Planters camp he was working at, which is 10 kilometers from White River in Sudbury Ontario on May 15, 2006. That day he was planting trees as usual, although according to some sources he may have argued with his supervisor on the bus that morning. When he began working he found his supervisor was unsatisfied with the quality of his work and insisted he replanted a block of trees. He did as he was told, but she still didn't think he had done well enough and insisted on him redoing the task for a second time. Aju found dealing with criticism challenging and by around noon the disagreement had escalated to both parties shouting. Aju eventually decided to quit his job on the spot and left the worksite.

Aju asked for company transport, so he could return to the main forestation camp and collect his belongings, including his Canadian and Nigerian passports, his social insurance card and his wallet. There were multiple vehicles available on-site, but the tree planting supervisors told Aju he would have to wait until the bus was scheduled to return to camp at 6:00 p.m. Aju waited for the bus at a remote intersection Domtar Road 100, sometimes called Danny Lake Road. He was last seen standing there by a supervisor at around 3:45 p.m. The next time a person passed the intersection, sometime between 4:15 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., Aju was gone.

It became apparent that Aju was missing at 6:00 p.m. when he didn't get on the bus to return to camp as expected. Between 6:15 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., the A&M Reforestation supervisors searched for Aju. They drove around the area honking and calling out Aju’s name but got no response. Aju was reported missing by his colleagues at 8:00 p.m. that night and law enforcement arrived on the scene sometime between 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. Unfortunately, it was too dark for them to search the woods, but they notified the Emergency Response Team (ERT) so they could plan a search for the next day.

The next morning, 18 ERT officers and 7 volunteers began searching the woods for Aju. They were aided by canine teams and three helicopters were deployed to gain an aerial view of the thick brush which would be difficult to search from the ground. The ground search continued for a week before being called off on May 22.

Aju’s father, Nwab, was notified of his son's disappearance at around 2:00 p.m. on May 17, 2006. Two days later he travelled out to White River himself with his eldest son, Echere, in an attempt to work out what happened. However, they quickly became alarmed by some of the details of the case. According to the police, Aju did not have his new shovel with him when he was waiting for the bus, yet it couldn't be found after he vanished. Furthermore, Aju’s expensive work boots were returned to his family with the laces missing and no explanation provided. The Iroaga family also did not believe that the police did not do their due diligence in investigating all possible lines of inquiry and that they should have looked into the possibility that Aju met with foul play.

On January 6, 2008, the Ontario Provincial Police indicated on a phone call with Nwab that they now consider Aju to be deceased. The Iroaga family now hope that a coroner's inquest can be held into Aju’s presumed death, but this has not occurred as of 2022.

## Characteristics

* Black hair.
* Black eyes.
* He had a dark complexion.

## Clothing and accessories

* A green cotton camouflage hoodie.
* Blue Denim pants.
* Brown leather running shoes.
* A black woolen Toque hat.
* A black Tilly hat.

## Sources

* Aju Iroaga at *NCMPUR*
* *Justice for Aju Iroaga*
* *Reader's Digest Canada*