crime
Canada: Probably dozens of indigenous children’s graves discovered again
A sign reading “Indigenous Lives Matter” at a memorial service in Victoria in July 2021. Now there are apparently more graves of Indigenous children. photo
© Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press/AP/dpa
Graves of indigenous children found on the grounds of boarding schools in Canada have repeatedly caused horror. Now there are signs of other burial sites.
A further 66 graves of indigenous children have been found at a boarding school in western Canada. This was indicated by ground radar investigations at St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School near the town of Williams Lake in the province of British Columbia, investigators said at a press conference, as reported by the Toronto Star newspaper. According to the report, the school, which was run most of the time by the Catholic Church, taught indigenous children from 1891 to 1981.
More evidence of the “horror and suffering” of Indigenous children is coming to light, Williams Lake First Nation’s Willie Sellars said at the press conference. According to the newspaper, 93 suspected graves were found on the site last year with the help of ground-penetrating radar.
Such repeated grave finds had led to numerous protests in Canada in recent years and also caused horror and outrage far beyond the borders of the country. From the 1880s onwards, an estimated 150,000 indigenous children were taken from their families and placed in church-run boarding schools in the country for decades. The program, initiated by the state and supported by the church, was intended to adapt the children to Western Christian society. In schools, many children experienced violence, sexual abuse, hunger and disease. Hundreds never came home. The last church-run boarding schools closed in 1996.
In July 2022, Pope Francis traveled to Canada and asked forgiveness of indigenous people for their suffering in Catholic boarding schools. The policy of assimilation and disenfranchisement was “devastating” and “catastrophic” for the people in these areas, the Argentine said in a speech at the time.