215 bodies of children have been found at a school in British Columbia, Canada, that closed down in 1978.
The children were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia that closed in 1978.
In a tweet, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau said that “it is The children were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia that closed in 1978”.T
The news that remains were found at the former Kamloops residential school breaks my heart – it is a painful reminder of that dark and shameful chapter of our country’s history. I am thinking about everyone affected by this distressing news. We are here for you. https://t.co/ZUfDRyAfET
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) May 28, 2021
The cause of death and the timing are still unknow. Experts from the Frist Nation and museum specialists and the coroner’s office are working currently to figure these details out.
Canada’s residential schools were compulsory boarding schools run by the government and religious authorities during the 19th and 20th Centuries with the aim of forcibly assimilating indigenous youth.
The school in question was the largest in the residential system. Opened under Roman Catholic administration in 1890, the school had as many as 500 students when enrolment peaked in the 1950s.
The remains were found with the help of a ground-penetrating radar during a survey of the school.
“To our knowledge, these missing children are undocumented deaths,” Ms Casimir said. “Some were as young as three years old”, Rosanne Casimir, the chief of the community in British Columbia’s city of Kamloops said.
Canada’s minister of indigenous relations, Carolyn Bennett, said residential schools were part of a “shameful” colonial policy. The government was committed to “memorializing those lost innocent souls”, she said.
“That this situation exists is sadly not a surprise and illustrates the damaging and lasting impacts that the residential school system continues to have on First Nations people, their families and communities,” its CEO Richard Jock wrote in a statement.
History of residential schools
Around 150,000 indigenous children were taken from their families and put in these schools from 1863 to 1998.
The Canadian government formally apologized for this system in 2008.
To date, more than 4,100 children who died while attending a residential school have been identified under the Missing Children Project that documents the deaths and the burial places of children who died while attending the schools.
The Truth and Reconciliation Report (TRC), released in 2015 as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement termed the practice “Cultural Genocide”.
