News

The Remains Of 751 Indigenous Children Were Found At A Former Roman Catholic School In Canada

The tragic discovery comes just a month after an additional 215 bodies were found at the site of another residential school.

by Millie Roberts  25 June 2021

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

An additional 751 unmarked graves of Indigenous children have been found at a former residential school in Canada on Thursday. The tragic discovery took place on the site of Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, west of Winnipeg.

The search team have said they believe the headstones or markers were intentionally removed, and they expect more bodies will be discovered. It comes just under a month after the remains of 215 children, some as young as three-years-old, were found at the former Kamloops Indian Residential Site in British Columbia.

“This was a crime against humanity, an assault on First Nations,” Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous First Nations said. “We are proud people, the only crime we ever committed as children was being born Indigenous.”

Residential boarding schools were set up by the Canadian Government and looked over by the Catholic church with the aim to separate Indigenous children from their culture, language, family, and history.

Nearly 140 of these schools were established in the late 19th century and ran until 1996, with an estimated 150,000 Indian, Inuit and Metis youths forcibly enrolled over this time, SBS reported.

The odds of children dying in residential schools was 1 in 25, and deaths attributed to disease, neglect, starvation, isolation, abuse, and fires.

Residential school survivors have also reported sexual assault taking place during their time there.

In 2015, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that both the church and governments at the time, engaged a policy of “cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources.”

“These measures were part of a coherent policy to eliminate Aboriginal people as distinct peoples and to assimilate them into the Canadian mainstream against their will,” the report read.

In a statement yesterday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his heart breaks for Indigenous communities across Canada.

“The findings at Marieval and Kamloops are part of a larger tragedy,” he wrote. “They are a shameful reminder of the systemic racism, discrimination, and the injustice that Indigenous peoples have faced — and continue to face — in this country.”