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At least 751 unidentified graves were found at a former Canadian cultural school, officials said Thursday.
The brutal discovery took place at the Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, a Catholic school that opened in 1899 and closed in 1997.
“This is a case of genocide, torture of Indigenous peoples … The only crime we have committed as children of Indian descent,” Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Supreme Indigenous First Nations said at a press conference.
Less than a month after the announcement on Thursday, several graves containing the bodies of 215 Indian children were found another such school, Indian Kamloops Residence School in Ottawa.
Both of these organizations were part of the dark side in Canadian history, where the Natural children were excommunication from their families and they are sent to state-run schools and the church to get rid of their culture and force them to take it. The schools were subject to physical and sexual violence, and Thousands of children died, but the exact numbers and causes of death will never be known.
Cameron said more old schools will be explored, and he hopes more graves will be found. “We will find more bodies, and we will not stop until we find all our children,” he said.
“Canada has discovered the findings of the massacre,” Cameron said. “We had concentration camps here … They are called residential schools in India. Canada will be known as the country that tried to destroy the First Nations, and now we have evidence.”
Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme said the tomb was already known, but the Roman Catholic Church, which runs the school, is believed to have removed the stone in the 1960s.
“The pope should apologize for what happened,” Delorme said. “Apologizing is one of the most important part of the healing journey.”
Earlier this month, the Prime Minister Justin trudeau He also appealed to Pope Francis to apologize for the church’s actions in the death of the children. “As a Catholic, I am deeply saddened by the ideas the Catholic Church has taken here and over the years,” Trudeau said.
Days after Trudeau’s comments, pontiff expressed frustration recognizing the graves of the people in Ottawa but did not apologize. “I will contact the Canadian bishops and the entire Catholic Church in Canada to express my closeness to the Canadian people who have been offended by this issue,” Francis said in a statement.
On Thursday, Trudeau said “very sad“that the bodies of many natural children have been found.
“No child should be deprived of their family and community, and deprived of language, culture, and identity. No child should be deprived of their precious youth in solitude and persecution,” Trudeau said. they live in fear, never to see their loved ones again. And no family should be deprived of the laughter and joy of their children playing, and the pride of seeing them grow up in their community. “
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