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Loretta Saunders is an Inuit woman and criminology student studying incidents of murdered and missing aboriginal women in Canada so, when her family suddenly and inexplicably lost contact with her on Valentine’s Day, it raised alarm.

Now, almost a week after she was last seen in Halifax, her car has been found by police near Windsor, Ont., in possession of two roommates she shared her apartment with, shifting alarm to outright panic and fear for the life of the 26-year-old Halifax student.

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“My family now is at the point where we’re expecting the worst,” said an emotional Edmund Saunders, her brother, in an interview Wednesday night.

“We just want to get her home. We know she’s not OK; she’s not well. She wouldn’t go this long without talking to her Dad. We just want to know where she is and bring her home.”

Ms. Saunders’ sister, Delilah Terriak, meanwhile, has headed a social media campaign to marshal a nationwide search.

“She is a proud Inuk whose thesis topic is on missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada, so she knows better than to just disappear like this,” Ms. Terriak said in a Facebook message.

“My heart is breaking more and more as time passes and my sister is the one who encourages and inspires me to persevere.”