The Cowessess First Nation, an indigenous nation in Saskatchewan, Canada said on Thursday, 751 unmarked graves have been found near a former Catholic boarding school for indigenous children in western Canada. Three weeks ago, 215 unmarked graves were found near Kamloops, British Columbia.
After the unmarked graves in British Columbia were discovered, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, on June 4, expressed that he was disappointed in the Catholic Church for refusing to reveal records of residential schools. On May 29, Trudeau said that The Pope should apologise for the role of the Catholic Church in a Canadian school system, where countless indigenous children were illtreated for decades.
Chief Cadmus Delorme of the Cowessess First Nation told Reuters, “This is not a mass gravesite. These are unmarked graves.” “The gravesite is there. It is real,” he added.
Until the 1990s, about 150,000 Native American, Metis and Inuit children were separated from their parents and forcibly were recruited into 139 of these residential schools across Canada, where they were isolated from their language and culture. Many of them even suffered sexual abuse and over 4,000 children have died.
According to Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, many were subjected to sexual abuse, and more than 4,000 died in the schools. The children were taken to the residential schools to assimilate them into Canadian society.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was "a shameful reminder of the systemic racism, discrimination, and injustice that Indigenous peoples have faced".
Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous First Nation told the Guardian. “Canada will be known as a nation that tried to exterminate the First Nations. Now we have evidence.”
“Our people deserve more than apologies and sympathies, which we are grateful for. Our people deserve justice,” Cameron said. “We will find more bodies and we will not stop until we find all of our children,” he added.
