Churches set on fire after discovering children’s remains

Two churches in Canada have burned amid calls for the Pope to apologize for abuses at residential schools, on the grounds of which 182 other unnamed children’s graves have been discovered.

Police said the church fires in Morinville, north of Edmonton, Alta., And San Kateri Tekakwitha, near Halifax, Nova Scotia, are being investigated as possible attacks.

“We are investigating him as a suspect,” Corporal Sheldon Robb of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) told AFP, referring to the fire that ravaged the Morinville church.

Corporal Chris Marshall of the Nova Scotia RCMP said the same about the fire that severely damaged St. Kateri Tekakwitha Church.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a news conference that the “horrific discoveries” of anonymous graves have forced Canadians “to reflect on the historical and current injustices that indigenous peoples have faced.”

Trudeau urged everyone to participate in the reconciliation, while denouncing vandalism and the burning of churches across the country.

“The destruction of places of worship is not acceptable and must stop,” he said.

“We have to work together to correct the mistakes of the past. Everyone has a role to play ”.

These two fires bring to eight the number of churches across Canada destroyed or damaged in recent days by suspicious fires, most in Indigenous communities.

A group of experts also discovered, using ground-penetrating radars, believed to be the remains of 182 anonymous children aged 5 to 13 at the former St. Eugene Mission School near Crankbrook, USA. -United. , the Indian community of Lower Kootenay said in a statement.

The new discovery comes after the remains of 215 children were found in unnamed graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia in May, and another 751 graves, also unnamed, at another residential school last week, Marieval Indian Residential School, Saskatchewan. .

The Lower Kootenay Indian community said research began last year at the Cranbrook grounds, where the Catholic Church operated a school on behalf of the federal government from 1912 to the early 1970s.

Some of the graves were barely three feet deep, they said.

These are believed to be the remains of members of various groups from the Ktunaxa Nation, which includes Lower Kootenay and other neighboring Indigenous communities.