New discoveries of possible Aboriginal children’s graves
The unmarked graves of 93 infants and toddlers have been found near a former religious boarding school for Aboriginal people in western Canada, it was announced Tuesday.
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AFP
An aboriginal community in western Canada announced Tuesday the discovery of what it believed to be nearly 100 unmarked children’s graves near a former religious residential school for aboriginal people.
“What we found is heartbreaking and overwhelming: to date, 93 unidentified graves have been found, 79 of children and 14 of children,” English River First Nation community leader Jenny Wolverin said at a press conference on Tuesday. And “this is not a definitive number,” he added, warning that the number could be higher.
Over two years, more than 1,300 children’s graves were discovered near these institutions where indigenous children were forcibly admitted, sending shock waves across the country and raising national awareness of the dark colonial past. The discoveries were made after ground-penetrating radar searches near the Puval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.
According to the University of Regina, the school buildings were destroyed by former boarders when they closed in 1995. Between the end of the 19th century and the mid-1990s, about 150,000 Aboriginal children were forced into 139 boarding schools across the country. There they were cut off from their families, language and culture.
“Cultural Genocide”
This dark side of Canadian history was brought back to light in the spring of 2021 after the first children’s graves were discovered. Run by the Catholic Church and the Canadian government, these institutions aim to “kill the Indian in the child’s heart,” says a documentary.
In July 2022, Pope Francis made a historic visit to Canada to offer his “apology”, apologizing to an indigenous delegation that visited the Vatican a few months earlier.
Ottawa, for its part, issued its first official apology in 2008. “We’re asking Canada and Saskatchewan to recognize their mistakes,” insisted Jenny Wolverine, adding that “governments must recognize cultural genocide and the dehumanization of people.” . Lamenting repeated excuses, she urged them to “put words into action”.
In 2015, a national commission of inquiry called the residential school system “cultural genocide”.
AFP
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