Less than a month after Canada’s darkest side of history was unfolded with the discovery of the remains of 215 Indigenous children at Kamloops Indian Residential School, leaders of a First Nation said they found hundreds of unmarked graves in the field of former Marieval Indian Residential School located in Saskatchewan, Canada. More graves are expected to be found at other sites, they said.
Cowessess First Nation’s Chief Cadmus Delorme announced they had discovered at least 600 graves after their radar detected 751 “hits” in the former school’s grounds. Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, he said, “This is not a mass gravesite. These are unmarked graves.”
The latest finding shows the “genocide” committed by Canada, Federation of Sovereign Indian Nations Chief Bobby Cameron said. He added that there are several burial sites like Kamloops and Marieval across the country and searches for undiscovered graves will continue, “We will find more bodies and we will not stop until we find all our children. The world is watching Canada as we unearth the findings of genocide. We had concentration camps here. We had them here in Canada, in Saskatchewan, they were called Indian residential schools.”
ALSO READ: Knife attack in a French Church leaves atleast 3 dead and several hurt
“Now we have evidence,” he said.
In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada found that over 150,000 Indigenous children were forced into residential schools of Catholic nuns.
The Roman Catholic Church operated the school found at Marieval, First Nation’s Chief said. This discovery confirms the takes told by Indigenous elders and residential school survivors who long spoke about the presence of a burial site there. These graves might have had headstones back in 1960 but people from the Catholic Church removed them, which amounts to a crime in Canada, he said, adding that the area is being treated as a crime scene.
“We cannot confirm they are all children. But there are oral stories that there are adults in this gravesite, as well,” he said.
There are about 10-15 per cent errors in the ground-penetrating radar technology used to detect the graves. Hence, the 751 “hits” could mean at least 600 graves, Delorme said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed disappointment over the discovery and called it “heartbreaking”. He personally requested Pope Francis, who is the representative for that group of churches, to apologize, yet the Pope dodged it. He offered condolences for the “upsetting discovery” but did not accept the responsibility for the actions of his church.
Delorme said Pope’s apology was needed for survivors to start their healing journey.
A survivor from the Marieval boarding school, Elder Florence Sparver said the Catholic nuns were “rough” with indigenous children and did not allow them to practice their customs, including the usage of their native language.
“We had our own way of honouring ourselves and Mother Earth,” Sparver said.
Geraldine Bob, a survivor of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, said, “They would just start beating you and lose control and hurl you against the wall, throw you on the floor, kick you, punch you,” in a heart-wrenching report made from the accounts of all survivors.
