The 16-year-old victim of a Saturday morning crash in Riverside South has been identified by friends as Julio Nibigirwe, a student at École secondaire catholique Franco-Cité.
Nibigirwe was a passenger in the van, which was carrying five young men in total when it crashed just after 2 a.m.
On Facebook, messages from friends and relatives were flooding in to two pages created in Nibigirwe's honour, which about 900 people had signed up to by 3:30 p.m.
"Rip cousin," one person wrote, "you will be missed by your whole family and friends."
"God bless your family and all the young teens," wrote another.
The van had been heading north on River Road approaching Lowen Drive when it left the roadway, police said.
Two of the passengers were ejected from the vehicle, paramedics said. One of them, Nibigirwe, was pronounced dead at the scene after suffering multi-system trauma.
The second passenger, a 21-year-old man, was found unconscious about 15 metres away from the van and was brought to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
The driver, a 17-year-old boy, was taken to hospital with another 17-year-old boy and a 19-year-old man, who all suffered minor injuries. One of them tried to flee the scene after the crash, paramedics said, but was later found nearby.
Police are investigating. Officers with the collisions unit would not say whether speed, alcohol or weather were factors in the crash.