(ANSA) - ROME, FEBRUARY 22 - Radar searches have revealed 17 pits near a former Canadian Catholic residential school in British Columbia that could contain the bodies of 751 children from indigenous communities.
This was reported by the Canadianpress citing a First Nation (a community of indigenous people in Canada) which is publishing the results of a preliminary search on the anonymous graves found on the grounds of a former residential school.
The cemetery is near the former Marieval Indian Residential School, located in the Cowesses First Nation area of southern Saskatchewan.
More than 150,000 native children were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools from the 19th century through the 1970s in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their families and culture, Christianize them, and assimilate them into the mainstream society, which previous governments viewed as superior.
The Canadian government admitted that ill-treatment and physical and sexual abuse were rampant, with students beaten for speaking their native language.
That legacy of abuse and isolation is seen by Indigenous leaders as a major cause of the epidemic rates of alcohol and drug addiction on reservations.
In April of last year Pope Francis apologized for the crimes committed with the complicity of the church, and in the following July he traveled to Canada and met with representatives of the indigenous communities.
(HANDLE).