Thousands of children from Canadian Indian schools may be buried in unmarked graves, official says

(CNN) – The first forensic evidence that in the old Kamloops Indian Residential Institute from Canada there were hundreds of unmarked graves it was a rib bone and a juvenile tooth found under the apple orchard.

But survivors of the school say they did not need forensic evidence to learn that hundreds of minors went missing in Kamloops. And this week, the new evidence simply supported what indigenous elders in Canada’s British Columbia province call “knowing.”

In an emotional presentation by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation on Thursday, officials investigating the unmarked graves warned that more are likely to be found in the coming months.

“After all, this investigation barely scratched the surface, covering only 0.8 hectares out of a total of 64 that comprise the institute,” said Sarah Beaulieu. She is a ground penetrating radar specialist who has led the forensic investigation.

So far 200 graves have been found, according to preliminary results, a figure slightly less than the initial estimate May 215. But Beaulieu contends that number could be higher as the investigation and forensic excavation progress.

“This fact, this ‘knowing’, has been recognized by indigenous communities for generations,” said Beaulieu. “All the gardens of the residential school are likely to have graves of missing children. Remote sensors like the GPR simply provide a spatial specification of this truth. “

Abuses in dozens of residential schools in Canada

The evidence presented this Thursday underscores the magnitude of the abuse and neglect of indigenous minors. Not just in British Columbia, but in dozens of residential schools in Canada. Similar forensic investigations are underway at dozens of sites where there may be more graves.

“We are talking clearly about thousands and thousands of missing children,” said Lisa Hodgetts, president of the Canadian Archaeological Association.

Kamloops survivors gave testimony of the findings during the presentation. They painted a bleak picture of what children as young as 5 were subjected to in these schools, a term that many survivors use with contempt. It is that they say that they were not educated, but that they were neglected and abused sexually, physically and emotionally.

Evelyn Camille, a survivor from Kamloops, spoke of abuse and neglect. Also, how many died trying to flee the school, drowning in a nearby river or dying of cold after trying to escape in winter.

“We’ve tried to mention over and over again that there are a lot of missing children who didn’t make it home,” Camille said.

Claim to the authorities of the government and the Church

The school, initially known as the Kamloops Industrial School, opened in 1890 and ran until 1978. It was opened and run by the Catholic Church until the federal government took over in the late 1960s.

“I think it is regrettable, as Dr. Beaulieu has already pointed out, that it took science to awaken the world to the truth that survivors and communities have known for years,” Hodgetts said during the presentation.

Rosanne Casimir, head of the First Nation Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, where the school is located, he said both the federal government and the Roman Catholic Church should release all records of those who attended the schools.

“We refuse to place the responsibility of identifying the missing on the survivors of the Kamloops Indigenous Residential Institute. They have already been traumatized and re-traumatized,” said Casimir, asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the government of Canada to share attendance records. .

It would be “a first step to help Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc fulfill its obligations regarding the disappeared without being recognized and as steps towards reconciliation,” said Casimir.

Indigenous leaders affirm that what happened were crimes

The Canadian government has said it will fund more research on nameless graves in indigenous communities across the country, but has also faced criticism for not doing so sooner, as noted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in their 2015 report.

Trudeau has said since the initial discovery in Kamloops in late May that his government will cooperate and provide funding for the investigations.

“There will be more funding as needed to continue to allow communities to grieve, heal and get answers,” Trudeau said during a news conference in Montreal on Thursday.

“And at the same time we have also been committed for many years and will continue to commit to sharing each and every record that the federal government has to help identify these graves,” he added.

Indigenous leaders said in recent weeks they were crimes and that they should be investigated as such.

The case of a 12-year-old boy

Survivors who attended the presentation spoke of how traumatized they have felt in recent weeks, reliving past abuse and crying for the children who lost their lives.

“I can remember a boy named Riley. He was cowed by one of the supervisors in the bathroom and it wasn’t long until he allegedly hung himself,” Bruce Allen, a survivor of the residential school, said in an interview with CNN from the site of Kamloops.

Allen said there is no way to know if that boy, who is supposed to be about 12 years old, committed suicide or if it was a crime.

According to him, in recent weeks he has seen hundreds of people, including many non-indigenous Canadians, come to pay their respects at an altar on the school grounds and he says that many have come to know the truth about Canada.

Allen works as a counselor on a survivor crisis line. He says that some of those who have contacted him since the tombs were discovered have never spoken of the abuse they have suffered or witnessed.

“This has awakened them, people who had never talked about it are telling their stories and there is a lot of pain and a lot of sadness,” he said.

Allen notes that as more people learn the truth about how many unmarked graves there are and how many children are missing, they are being inundated with calls from survivors trying to assimilate the scale of what they call cultural genocide.