At a boarding school in western Canada, another 66 graves of indigenous children have probably been found. This was indicated by ground radar investigations at St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School near the town of Williams Lake in the province of British Columbia, investigators said at a press conference, as reported by the Toronto Star newspaper. According to the report, the school, which was run most of the time by the Catholic Church, taught indigenous children from 1891 to 1981.
More evidence of the “horror and suffering” of Indigenous children is coming to light, Williams Lake First Nation’s Willie Sellars said at the press conference. According to the newspaper, 93 suspected graves were found on the site last year with the help of ground-penetrating radar.
Such repeated finds of graves had led to numerous protests in Canada in recent years and also caused horror and outrage far beyond the country’s borders. From the 1880s onwards, an estimated 150,000 indigenous children were taken from their families and placed in church-run boarding schools in the country for decades. The program, initiated by the state and supported by the church, was intended to adapt the children to Western Christian society. In the schools, many children experienced violence, sexual abuse, hunger and disease. Hundreds never came home. The last church-run boarding schools closed in 1996.
In July 2022, Pope Francis traveled to Canada and asked forgiveness of indigenous people for their suffering in Catholic boarding schools. The policy of assimilation and disenfranchisement was “devastating” and “catastrophic” for the people in these areas, the Argentine said in a speech at the time.
