ANSA) – MONTREAL, JUNE 24 – Hundreds of anonymous graves have been discovered near a former Catholic ‘residential school’ for native children in western Canada. The announcement of the “horrifying and shocking discovery of hundreds of nameless graves” during excavations at the former Marieval college was made by the Cowessess community. Excavations in the former school of Marieval, in the province of Saskatchewan, had begun in May, after the discovery of the remains of 215 children near what was once the Kamloops Indian Residential School, one of the institutions of the so-called ‘Indian residential system. schools’, a network of government-founded schools administered by Catholic Churches that removed indigenous children from their culture to assimilate them into the dominant culture.
“The number of unnamed graves will be the most significant to date in Canada,” said the Federation of Indigenous Sovereign Nations (FSIN) statement in a statement referring to the former school of Marieval.
Following the discovery of Kamloops’ human remains, excavations have begun in several former residential schools in the country with the assistance of government authorities. The former school in Marieval, in eastern Saskatchewan, remained active for 98 years, until 1997.
The children who attended these schools were often subjected to sexual and physical abuse, and many of them paid with their lives for their only ‘guilt’ of being different. (HANDLE).
