17-year-old's body found in river after reports of group falling through ice

Police tape is strung up on a lock on the Rideau River Thursday morning near where emergency services are searching for a missing teenager. (Patricia Sauzede-Bilodeau/Radio-Canada)

Ottawa police say they've found the body of a teenage boy in the Rideau River and the search for a second missing boy continues Thursday.

Ottawa paramedics said they first heard reports about four teenagers who fell through the ice near Nicholls Island Road around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Two teens age 15 and 17 were found and taken to hospital to be treated for mild hypothermia while a police diver was taken to hospital for what paramedics called a diving-related emergency.

Ottawa police said in a Thursday morning news release the two other missing people are boys age 16 and 17. Police divers found one of their bodies.

The search "in very difficult conditions" for the other missing boy stopped overnight and was to resume Thursday morning, police said.

Emergency crews search the Rideau River near the south Ottawa community of Manotick overnight. (Radio-Canada)

Nicholls Island Road crosses the Rideau River around where the communities of Riverside South and Manotick meet, about 20 kilometres south of Ottawa's core.

Ottawa has had a warmer-than-average December with temperatures above the freezing mark for five straight days.

Victim said they were going skating

CBC News spoke to Haitham Mohammed at the scene, who said the body is his 17-year-old son Ahmed Ahmed.

His aunt Faten Atallah described Ahmed as a very active, sporty teenager who was friendly with everyone, especially his family.

A month away from turning 18, she said he had hoped to attend a post-secondary police foundations program next year.

He was the youngest of four children. The family had come to Canada as refugees from Iraq a decade ago.

"They were excited to start a new beginning," Atallah told CBC.

Ahmed Ahmed poses with an Iraq flag in a Facebook photo posted in February 2021. (Ahmed Ahmed/Facebook)

She said Ahmed had left his family's Nepean home to go skating with three friends from John McCrae Secondary School.

Around 20 minutes later, the family got the dreaded knock at their door and quickly went to the river. She said Ahmed's body was found around 4 a.m.

"We were all screaming," she said. "It's really hard. We can't describe."

As of mid-Thursday morning, the family was still waiting to be able to see his body.

"This is the worst feeling ever [to lose a child]," Atallah said.