A gruesome discovery at a school in Canada revealed that their location used to be a graveyard site for 215 children.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the discovery of the bodies of children as “heartbreaking”. Some of the remains found were barely three years old, at the site of a former residential school for indigenous children.
Investigations revealed the children were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia which had closed down in 1978, and the remains were found with the help of a ground-penetrating radar specialist, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Nation chief Rosanne Casimir said, adding: “We had a knowing in our community that we were able to verify. At this time, we have more questions than answers.”
RELATED STORY: ‘Dead’ man returns home alive after his funeral
A six-year investigation into the now-defunct system reported in 2015 that Canada’s residential school system, which forcibly separated indigenous children from their families, constituted “cultural genocide.”
The report had documented horrific physical abuse, rape, malnutrition, and other atrocities suffered by most of the 150,000 children who attended these schools that ran from the 1840s to the 1990s.
While over 4,100 children died in attending the residential school, the deaths of the 215 children buried in the grounds of what was once Canada’s largest residential school are believed to not have been included in that figure and appear to have been undocumented until the discovery, the report stated.
READ ON: Baby starved for 2 days, found lying next to his dead mom in India
Trudeau tweeted the news, saying “breaks my heart — it is a painful reminder of that dark and shameful chapter of our country’s history.” In 2008, the Canadian government had formally apologised for the system.
The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Nation said that their preliminary findings will be released by mid-June. They plan to engage with the coroner and reach out to the home communities whose children attended the school.
Meanwhile, British Columbia Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief Terry Teegee described the discovery of such gravesites as “urgent work that refreshes the grief and loss for all First Nations in British Columbia.” (AW)
