Remains of 215 children found at Indigenous school site in Canada

 

These are some of the 150 000 indigenous children who attended so-called residential schools in Canada between the 1840s and 1990s many were forcibly taken from their parents and there was widespread abuse some lived here at the Kamloops Indian residential school in British Columbia where the remains of 215 children have just been discovered some of the children who died were as young as three there's nothing more painful in life than losing a child my heart breaks today thinking of all the loving parents who never saw their children return home and who were never granted the dignity of knowing what happened it's a discovery that Canada’s prime minister has described as a painful reminder of a shameful chapter in his country's history the Canadian government formally apologized for the abuse at these schools in 2008 and years later an official inquiry by a truth and reconciliation commission into the residential school system concluded it amounted to cultural genocide against indigenous communities the residential schools were opened with the sole purpose of removing the Indian from the child it was to assimilate indigenous people in Canada and essentially in the words of one of the superintendents at the time was to get rid of the Indian problem members of Canada’s indigenous communities say they're in touch with the coroner and are contacting families of children who attended the school for now though they say they still have more questions than answers Victoria gate by Jazeera