London police have identified the victim of a fatal collision in the city's northwest end on Tuesday as a well-respected family doctor and medical school associate professor.
Dr. Agron Alija, 62, of London died in the crash that happened around 8:25 a.m. on Fanshawe Park Road, west of Pinnacle Parkway.
Alija was transported to hospital with life-threatening injuries, where he later died, police said.
The adult male driver of the other vehicle involved was seriously injured and taken to hospital, police said. That person has not been identified.
The cause of the collision remains under investigation.
An associate professor at London's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Alija became a certified doctor in Ontario in 2009, according to his College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario listing.
Alija had immigrated to Canada a decade earlier from Kosovo, where he had been working as a physician in Prishtina when the War in Kosovo began in 1998, a Carlton University profile says.
According to the non-profit The Artistè Foundation, Alija worked as a translator with the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission, helping international observers monitor and document human rights abuses.
"I saw humanity at its worst and its best," the foundation quotes him as saying.
Some 11,400 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, died during the war, which lasted from 1998 until 1999. A NATO bombing campaign forced Serbia to pull its troops out of Kosovo and to cede control of its former province to the United Nations and NATO.
When NATO's campaign began, Alija and his family sought refuge in Macedonia, where he helped interview refugees for the Canadian embassy.
He was working at a medical clinic on Wonderland Road at the time of his death.
The London chapter of the Albanian Canadian Society, where Dr. Alija was an active member, describes his death as a profound loss saying he leaves behind his spouse and children.
"Dr. Alija was a dedicated family physician and emergency doctor, admired for his professionalism, compassion, and unwavering commitment to his patients. Throughout his distinguished career, he saved countless lives and stood as a symbol of devotion to the noble calling of medicine," the group wrote on their social media page.
The London police continue to ask drivers who were in the area on Monday morning to come foward if they have dashcam footage that could help with the investigation.