Vancouver woman misidentified as sister of Manchester bomber

Vancouver model Janice Joostema was mistakenly identified as the sister of Manchester bomber Salman Abedi in numerous Italian news outlets. (Janice Joostema/Instgram)

In a strange case of mistaken identification a Vancouver woman has been wrongly identified as Joman Abedi, the sister of Manchester bomber Salman Abedi on a number of Italian news sites.

Photos of model and blogger Janice Joostema were wrongly captioned as being that of Joman Abedi in major publications including Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica and La Stampa.

The mistake was pointed out on social media.

'We made a mistake'

Alberto Simoni, foreign desk editor of La Stampa, told CBC news that his publication has apologized to Joostema.

"We made a mistake," he said. "We found a facebook profile [with] the same name as the sister of the bomber. Other Italian websites published many photos of this woman."

According to Simoni, La Stampa published one photo of Joostema and issued a correction the following day.

Joostema's online profile says she was born and raised in Vancouver. She has 1.2 million followers on Instagram.

​Salman Abedi killed 22 people in a suicide bombing attack in Manchester, England earlier this week.