The body of a child is pictured on a road leading to a primary school in Lingshan county
The body of a child is pictured on a road leading to a primary school in Lingshan county, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous region, September 26, 2014. A man stabbed four primary school children to death on Friday in the southern Chinese region of Guangxi, state media said, the latest in a series of knife attacks that have unnerved the country. REUTERS/Stringer

The dead body of a child was found in a car in Vancouver. A woman, who police believe to be the mother of the child, has been arrested.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police found the child corpse in the 13900 block of 35A Avenue in Vancouver on Wednesday. The RCMP spokesperson Sgt Jennifer Pound said that officers got phone calls that the car had been in a ditch in South Surrey. The calls apparently indicated that there were "suspicious circumstances" involved in the car. The child's lifeless body was found while investigating the car as the officers looked into the trunk. While the gender and the age of the deceased child were not revealed, the RCMP does not believe that the child breathed its last on the scene. The officers, on the other hand, are unsure where the death took place. "We believe that the child was transported here," Digital Journal quoted Pound, "We don't have a specific timeline on when the death occurred."

The Integrated Homicide Investigative Team is presently in charge of the investigation. At the same time, the Coroner's office in British Columbia is also involved in the investigating process. An autopsy is required to find out the cause of the child's death. However, the report will come only after a few days. The RCMP refused to indulge in speculations and said that it would only comment after getting the report. Pound said that officers had already started canvassing the region and interviewing the witnesses for further information. She also said that the traffic in the area had been rerouted. CTV News reported that the officers would be expected to remain in the neighbourhood into the night and on Thursday as well.

CBC News earlier reported a suspected murder-suicide in Ontario. A five-year-old girl called Katrina was found dead in a Brockville apartment. Her 36-year-old mother, Monica Willemsen, was also found dead. Brockville police said that the child's school had informed officers when the girl absented from school without prior information. Neighbours said that they did not find anything suspicious about the mother and the daughter. The Edmonton Sun later confirmed the suspected murder-suicide. The mother was apparently suffering from depression.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au