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A Canadian west-coast indigenous community says it discovered the remains of more than 200 children it believes attended a state-run school, reopening wounds about the country’s centurylong mistreatment of its indigenous people.
The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, in the province of British Columbia, said the remains of an estimated 215 children were found through the use of ground-penetrating radar, which surveyed nearby territory where a government-funded boarding school for indigenous students once operated. The First Nation, based in the town of Kamloops, expects to complete its findings in mid-June.
“We’re still grappling through the effects,” Chief Rosanne Caismir of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation said Friday at a press conference. “This loss is absolutely unthinkable.”
Political leaders, led by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have relayed their condolences to the indigenous community. “It is a painful reminder of that dark and shameful chapter of our country’s history,” Mr. Trudeau said via his official Twitter account. Mr. Trudeau has worked to advance reconciliation with the country’s 1.7 million Indigenous people, which he has made a policy priority since coming to office. Indigenous Canadians make up roughly 5% of the total 38 million population and fare poorly on a range of indicators, with higher rates of suicide, incarceration and infant mortality than the general population.
For more than a century, Canada’s residential school system, as it was known, separated some 150,000 indigenous children from their families. An estimated 4,100 children died of disease or by accident while in the system, according to an inquiry report in 2015, which said the school system was akin to cultural genocide. The inquiry said a complete death toll might never be known because officials at the time destroyed hundreds of records.
Following a class-action lawsuit settlement with residential-school survivors, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an apology to the country’s Indigenous population in 2008. He said the school policy “was wrong, caused great harm and has no place in our country.”
Chief Caismir said community elders have relayed stories about abuse in the school system, and of children who went missing.
“It’s a harsh reality. It’s our history,” Chief Caismir said. “This is about the truth coming out and honoring those children.”
The 2015 inquiry report, referred to as Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, found that indigenous children at residential schools endured poor diets, physical harm and sexual abuse. Indigenous languages and religion were forbidden in an attempt to force the children to assimilate.
The inquiry, which gathered testimony from 6,750 witnesses, relayed the experience of a student who brought a miniature totem pole she received for her birthday to the Kamloops residential school. “When she proudly showed it to one of the nuns, it was taken from her and thrown out. She was told that it was nothing but devilry,” the inquiry said, citing the former student’s testimony.
The school in Kamloops operated for nearly nine decades, until 1978, under the administration of the Roman Catholic Church, and enrollment peaked in the 1950s at 500. In a statement, Bishop Joseph Nguyen of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kamloops said he was distraught to learn of the discovery, and pledged his support to the First Nation. He expressed sympathy “to all who are mourning this tragedy and unspeakable loss.”
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.
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