Weeks after the remains of 215 children were found at a former Catholic boarding school for Indigenous children in Kamloops, Canada, two more Catholic churches nearby were destroyed by fire. The Canadian Federal Police said fires broke out within an hour early Saturday morning at both St.

“Both churches were destroyed,” said a statement from police, which classified the fire as “suspicious.” It will be investigated whether it is related to the church fire in the cities of Penticton and Oliver, about 50 kilometers away a week ago. The investigation into the Penticton and Oliver fires is still ongoing.

dark chapter in canadian history

A few weeks ago, the remains of 215 secretly buried children were discovered at the site of a former Catholic children’s home in Kamloops, in the western Canadian province of British Columbia. This discovery caused a stir in the whole country. In Canada, by 1874, about 150,000 native and mixed couple children had been separated from their families and their culture and placed in church homes to force them to adapt to white majority society . Many of them were abused or sexually abused in homes. According to previous information, at least 3,200 of these children died, most of them from tuberculosis.

This week, a second site became known: On the site of another former boarding school for Indigenous children, search teams came across 751 graves. The plant is located in the city of Regina in central Canada and was in operation from 1899 to 1997. The Cause people did not take the facility from the Catholic Church until the 1980s.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized Friday for a “harmful” policy of forced assimilation, acknowledged the responsibility of the Canadian government – and also called for an apology from Pope Francis.