Weeks after children’s remains were found in Canada’s British Columbia, an indigenous group on Wednesday announced the “horrific and shocking discovery” of hundreds of unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school. Cowessess and the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN), which represents Saskatchewan’s First Nations, said in a statement that the number of newly found unmarked graves was “the most significantly substantial to date in Canada.”
The unmarked graves were found at the former Marieval Indian Residential School, in Saskatchewan, which operated from 1899 to 1997 about 140 kilometres east of Regina. In the 1970s, the First Nation took over the school’s cemetery from the Catholic Church, which ran most of the schools. While the group didn’t reveal specific numbers, it said it would announce at a news conference on Thursday morning “the horrific and shocking discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School.”
The reports reveal Canada’s legacy of an abusive and assimilationist system under which the country’s residential school system forcibly separated about 150,000 indigenous children from their families between 1831 and 1996. The Marieval residential school hosted indigenous children between 1899 and 1997 before it was demolished and replaced by a day school.
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Many indigenous children were subjected to ill-treatment and sexual abuse, and more than 4,000 died in the schools, according to Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission which called the system “cultural genocide” in its report.
Perry Bellegarde, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said the news was “absolutely tragic, but not surprising. I urge all Canadians to stand with First Nations in this extremely difficult and emotional time.”
While Canada’s federal government apologised for the system in 2008, the Roman Catholic Church, which ran most of the schools, has not apologised.
Earlier this month, Pope Francis said he was pained by the news, a statement dismissed by survivors.
(With inputs from agencies)
