The chilling discovery at a Canadian school closed in 1978

An investigation has highlighted the remains of 215 children in a Canadian school mass grave closed in 1978 and raised to facilitate the integration of the indigenous population.

The bodies were found in the Kamloops Indian Residential School, in British Columbia, where coroners are already working to determine the exact cause and date of death, Canadian public television reported, CBC.

The discovery was announced by the chief of the Indian tribe Tk’emlups te Secwepemc. “To our knowledge, those of these lost children are dead without papers. Some were only three years oldSaid the Kamloops community leader, Rosanne Casimir, in statements to the British channel BBC.

The preliminary results of the investigation should be published in a report in juneSaid Casimir.

These types of schools were created in the 19th and 20th centuries to forcibly assimilating indigenous youth and were funded by the state and run by religious organizations.

Kamloops was the largest in the country, opened in 1890 under a Catholic administration, and hosted some 500 students at its peak, in the 1950s. In 1969 the federal government took over its management and made it a student residence and this is how it operated until it closed in 1978.

“It breaks my heart”the Canadian Prime Minister said on Twitter, Justin trudeau. “It’s a sad memory of this dark and regrettable chapter in our history. My thoughts are with all those affected by this heartbreaking news, ”wrote the President, who made reconciliation with the first peoples of Canada, one of its priorities since taking office in 2015.

The Minister of Native Relations, Carolyn Bennett, criticized these internees and declared that they are the product of a “Shameful” colonial policy. In addition, he promised to “pay homage to these lost innocent souls”.

Between 1863 and 1998, it is estimated that more than 150,000 indigenous minors were uprooted from their homes and placed in schools where they were not allowed to speak their language or express their culture and where mistreatment and abuse were common..

It is estimated that at least 3,200 died, mostly from tuberculosis, according to the findings of a national commission of inquiry.

This commission heard testimony from several Native Americans who said that the poverty, alcoholism, domestic violence and high suicide rates that still plague many of their communities are largely the legacy of the residential school system.

In 1910, the warden of the Kamloops Institution complained that the canadian government has not provided enough funds to “adequately feed the students”, according to the community statement.

Ottawa has formally apologized to the survivors of the 2008 internees as part of a deal to CAD 1.9 billion (USD 1.5 billion).

The commission of inquiry concluded in 2015 that many minors never returned to their communities and thus recognized a “cultural genocide”.

The Lost Children project has so far identified more than 4,100 minors who died during their stay in boarding school and many of them were buried within the school grounds themselves.

(With information from Europa Press and AFP)

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