Another gruesome discovery on the grounds of a former boarding school for Indigenous children in Canada. More than 750 unmarked graves were discovered on Thursday in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. In a statement, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote that he was “deeply saddened” and told indigenous people: “Canada is responsible for the pain and trauma they are feeling.” Cadmus Delorme, head of the Caucasus First Nation, said it was unclear how many of the remains were of indigenous children. “But there is oral tradition that adults are also in this tomb, because it was the Roman Catholic Church that supervised the tomb. Some of them may have come from the church and surrounding areas and were buried here.” Canada’s boarding system, which operated between 1831 and 1996, forcibly separated some 150,000 Indigenous children from their families. In most Catholic boarding schools, which were run by the federal government, children often faced physical and sexual abuse, among other things. The Cowes First Nation discovery comes a month after the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia.
Watch in video: More than 750 graves found at the site of a former Catholic boarding school.