The discovery of mass graves in Native Canadian schools has posed a major challenge for the Canadian government in recent months.
Pak Sahafat – For decades, most Indigenous children in Canada have been forcibly separated from their families and sent to boarding schools.
Many of these children never returned home, and their families gave only vague explanations.
In recent months, Indigenous peoples in Canada say they have found evidence of what happened to some of their missing children: mass graves containing the bodies of hundreds of children on the site of a former Indigenous school.
The bodies found in these mass graves belong to children, some of whom are three years old.
Since the 19th century, Canada has had a system of boarding schools run mainly by churches, with Native children having to attend.
The native school system declined in the 1970s, and the last school closed in 1996.
Following the discovery of Canada’s first mass grave, a National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, formed as part of the Canadian government’s apology and commitment to resolving the issue of these schools, concluded that at least 4,100 students lost their lives while attending these schools.
Investigations show that many of them died due to abuse or neglect and others due to illness or accident.
This showed that in many cases, families never knew the fate of their children, who are now known as missing children.
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Continuation of the horrific story of the mass graves of Native Canadian children
Camelops, once Canada’s largest boarding school, with about 500 students at its peak, was run by the Catholic Church until 1969, when the federal government took over.
In 2015, the Archbishop of Canada issued a letter reiterating his apology for the church’s role in the federal school policy.
But in 2018, Pope Francis rejected a direct request for an apology from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
But in the meantime, the Catholic Church’s silence on the issue has drawn widespread criticism not only in Canada but also internationally.
The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded in 2015 that residential schools were a “cultural genocide” program; the use of indigenous languages ​​in these schools was generally prohibited through the use of violence.
The commission found evidence of decades of neglect and abuse in indigenous schools; In addition, in 1918, a government official who inspected the Kamlops School reported that he had provided evidence of inadequate food for children.
A former Camellops school student told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that staff “started beating students and losing control, throwing people against walls, throwing them to the ground and kicking them.”
The search for the remains of students at Camelops School began in the early 2000s; this is partly because the official explanations – including the claim that the missing children escaped from the school – did not match the narratives narrated by the former students.