Radar searches have revealed 17 pits near a former Canadian Catholic residential school in British Columbia that may contain the bodies of 751 children from indigenous communities.
The Canadianpress reports it, citing a First Nation (a community of indigenous people in Canada) which is publishing the results of a preliminary research 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-born children were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools
from the 19th century until the 1970s in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their families and culture, Christianize them, and assimilate them into the dominant society, which previous governments considered superior.
The Canadian government admitted that physical and sexual ill-treatment and 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 the reservations.
In April of last year
Pope Francis
apologized for the crimes committed with the complicity of the church, and the following July he traveled to Canada and met with representatives of the indigenous communities.
