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An aboriginal in Saskatchewan, Canada, is considering a now-defunct boarding school as a “crime scene” because 751 unmarked graves were found in British Columbia, as well as in British Columbia a few weeks ago. Similar discoveries were made, prompting people to re-examine the colonial history of the country.
Chief Cadmus Delorme of Cowessess First Nation said on Thursday that these graves are Found on the site of Marieval Indian boarding schoolAfter the ground penetrating radar search was launched on June 2, it was also known as Grayson.
“This is not a mass grave. These are unmarked graves,” Delorm said at a press conference on Thursday morning, adding that the discovery “re-opened the pain many people suffered at school.” “The cemetery is there. It’s true.”
Delorm said it is not yet clear how many remains belonged to the children, adding that the tomb was allegedly removed illegally. “We did not remove these tombstones. In this country, removing tombstones is a crime. We currently treat them as crime scenes.”
Last month, there were the remains of 215 children, some as young as three years old. Was found buried Near Kamloops, British Columbia, was once home to Canada’s largest aboriginal boarding school.
Marieval School operated from 1898 to 1996 about 87 miles east of Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan. Cowessess First Nation took over the school cemetery from the Catholic Church in the 1970s.
The news of this discovery caused new grief and frustration among the leaders of the country.
“We are seeing the results of the genocide committed by Canada-genocide on our treaty land,” said Bobby Cameron, chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous First Nations. “Canada will be called a country that is trying to eliminate aboriginal people. Now we have evidence.”
Perry Bellegarde, president of the Aboriginal Congress of Saskatchewan Cubs, said on Twitter that the latest findings are “absolutely tragic, but not surprising.”
“I urge all Canadians to stand with the Aboriginal people during this extremely difficult and emotional time.”
This grim discovery brings the total number of unmarked graves discovered in the past month to approximately 1,000. Experts predict that as the provincial government announces funding to help indigenous communities conduct their own searches, more graves will appear.
“We will search every Indian boarding school, and we will not stop there. We will also search all nursing homes and Indian hospitals, as well as all places where people are abused, neglected and murdered,” Cameron said. “We will tell the stories of the children of our dead people, who were killed by the state and killed by the church. We will not stop.”
Since the 19th century, More than 150,000 indigenous children were forced to enter state-sponsored Christian schools As part of a plan to integrate them into Canadian society.
They were forced to convert to Christianity and were not allowed to speak their mother tongue. Many people were beaten and verbally abused.
In 2015, the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission described school policy as “Cultural genocideIn recent weeks, more and more people have asked the Catholic Church, which runs many schools, to publish the records of its institutions.
“Our people deserve more than the apology and sympathy we are grateful for. Our people deserve justice,” Cameron said.
The Canadian government formally apologized in Parliament in 2008 and admitted that physical and sexual abuse in schools is rampant.
“I always want to know how someone who should be a Christian and a pastor could abuse a 7-year-old girl,” said Carol Lavallee, who was removed from her home by an ox cart when she was six. Take away to participate in Marieval. 2007 provincial medical gathering.
Many students recalled being beaten for speaking their mother tongue; they also lost contact with their parents and customs.
Indigenous leaders believe that the legacy of abuse and intergenerational trauma still exists today, which is the root cause of the prevalence of alcohol and drug abuse in the reserved areas.
“A lot of the pain we see in our employees now comes from there,” Florence Florence Sparvier, a former boarding school student, told reporters at a press conference. “They make us believe that we believe we have no souls.”
Both Cameron and Delorm stated that this work is just a begging in the long process of identifying and properly commemorating the dead.
Cameron said: “We will find more dead bodies, and we will not stop until we find all our children.”
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