More than 160 new unidentified tombs have been discovered near a residential school

France Press agency , Posted on Tuesday, July 13, 2021 at 10:13 PM

More than 160 new unidentified graves have been discovered in western Canada near the site of the former Kuper Island Indian Residential School, the fourth such discovery in just over a month, the community of Penelakut.

Within a few weeks, more than 1,000 graves were discovered, reviving a painful part of Canadian history and the policy of First Nations forced assimilation.

“We must once again face the shock of this genocide,” President Joan Brown said in a statement issued on July 8 confirming the discovery of more than 160 unidentified graves at the site.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Bob Chamberlain, vice president of the British Columbia Association of Indigenous Heads. According to him, many other unknown tombs “have not yet been discovered”.

“My heart is broken for the Penilakote community and all Indigenous communities across the country,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Tuesday.

“Nous ne pouvons pas ramener à la vie ceux qui ont péri, mais nous pouvons et nous allons faire connaître la vérité et continue de collaborer avec les peuples autochtones pour combattre la discrimination et le racisme systémique atémique partes des add” actions.”

The Kuper Island Native Residential School hosted Native children from the late 19th century to 1975.

The announcement comes shortly after western Canada discovered earlier this summer the human remains of 215 Aboriginal children in Kamloops, 751 unmarked graves in Marival, Saskatchewan, and 182 others in Cranbrook.

The Kuper Island Native Residential School hosted Native children from the late 19th century to 1975.

This fourth discovery in just over a month relives the trauma suffered by some 150,000 Indigenous children, cut off from their families, language and culture, and forcibly enrolled until the 1990s in 139 boarding schools across the country.

Many of them were abused or sexually abused, and more than 4,000 of them died there, according to the commission of inquiry that found veritable “cultural genocide” on Canada’s behalf.

In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized on behalf of Canadians about boarding schools.