A mass grave with the remains of 215 indigenous children was found on the site of a former boarding school in southern British Columbia, Canada.
Kyiv. Ukraine. Ukraine Gate – May 29, 2021 – International News
The burial was found in a former school near the city of Kamloops after the group explored the place with georadar.
“We had information that we needed to verify. As far as we know, these missing children are undocumented deaths,” said Rosanna Casimir, head of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc.
Some of the remains belong to children aged three, but the cause and time of their death are not yet known.
“Currently we have more questions than answers,” Kazimir said.
The boarding school in Kamloops was founded in 1890 under the direction of the Roman Catholic Church and closed in 1978. It was part of a Canadian network of boarding schools set up to assimilate indigenous children by removing them from homes and communities and banning them from speaking their mother tongue or engaging in cultural practices. Physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, as well as forced labor, were reportedly practiced in these facilities.
At least 150,000 children attended such schools as part of what the historic Truth and Reconciliation Commission called 2015 a “cultural genocide” against Canada’s indigenous people. In documents submitted to the commission, former Kamloops participants described the harsh conditions of a school that did not receive sufficient funding from the government to cover its expenses. The same documents mention that students suffered outbreaks of measles, tuberculosis, influenza, and other infectious diseases, and many of them died. Violence against students at the Kamloops boarding school continued until it closed.
Indigenous peoples have long believed that mass burials of boarding school students exist, and have argued that this has been going on for decades.
“This is important because the history of secret mass graves in boarding schools is an urban legend,” said a column in the British Columbia news agency TheTyee.ca.
According to The Guardian, at least 3,201 deaths have been reported in boarding schools, although the true total may never be known due to unaccounted for deaths and destroyed files.
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Source: Ukrgate
