Horrific Find Made at Another Residential School Site

Hundreds of unmarked graves detected at Canadian school for Indigenous children
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 24, 2021 7:14 AM CDT
Another Canadian School Site Yields Sea of Unmarked Graves
Cowichan Tribe member Benny George holds his child Bowie, 3, on his shoulders as they listen during a Vancouver ceremony and vigil for the 215 children whose remains were found buried at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, Monday, June 21, 2021.   (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

Indigenous leaders in Canada say they are horrified—but not surprised—by the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in Saskatchewan. The Cowessess First Nation says the discovery, made weeks after the remains of 215 children were found at a former school for Indigenous children in British Columbia, is the "most significantly substantial to date in Canada," the BBC reports. The Marieval Residential Indian School, operated by the Catholic Church, was one of numerous schools that housed Indigenous children taken from their families under a policy of forced assimilation. It operated from 1899 to 1997. Abuse and neglect were common, and many children—more than 10,000 of around 150,000 taken from their families, by some estimates—never returned home.

Cowessess leaders say ground-penetrating radar was used to find unmarked graves at the site, which also contains some marked graves. Barry Kennedy, a survivor of the Marieval school, tells the CBC that he remembers one friend who was dragged off screaming and was never seen again. He believes the latest disturbing find is just the tip of the iceberg. Indigenous leaders say their accounts of thousands of children disappearing from the schools—with parents given vague explanations at best—were long treated with skepticism. "There’s no denying this: All of the stories told by our survivors are true,” says Bobby Cameron, chief of Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, per the New York Times. "This is what the Catholic Church in Canada and the government of Canada of the day forced on our children." (Two Catholic churches on Indigenous land burned to the ground this week.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X