MEXICO CITY (apro) .- A few churches were destroyed and two others set on fire in the Okanagan region, British Columbia, Canada, following the discovery of the bodies of more than 750 Indigenous miners at a boarding school run by the Church Catholic, HuffPost reported.
Lower Similkameen Indian gang leader Keith Crow said he received a call warning him that the Choapaka church was on fire and when they arrived at the scene they found only ashes, according to Canadian media CBC.
“I’m angry. I don’t see anything positive about it,” said Crow, who later found out that the Upper Similkameen Church had also been set on fire.
“It’s not a coincidence,” Crow said, as the two fires were reported an hour apart and immediately after, two more Okanagan churches were destroyed.
The chief of the Cowessess tribe, Cadmus Delorme, indicated that this find is not a “mass grave”, but “anonymous graves” in a cemetery guarded until 1960 by the Catholic Church and that it then removed.
The graves were found at the Marieval Indian Residential School, which operated from 1899 to 1996 where the Cowessess tribe now resides, 140 kilometers east of the demolished city of Regina, capital of the province of Saskatchewan. , but the church and the cemetery have been preserved.
“This would be the largest announcement of the discovery of graves at Indigenous Juvenile Residential Schools to date, after the discovery of more than 215 bodies of children buried over 40 years ago at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. was announced at the end of May. “Said the HuffPost.
On May 28, a group of indigenous people denounced the discovery of the remains of at least 215 indigenous children in a former school in western Canada. Their deaths have not been documented, ViveUSA reported.
Rosanne Casimir, chief of tk’emlúps te secwépemc, an indigenous group in the province of British Columbia, explained that they were discovered on the grounds of the Kamloops school residence.
“In our community, we had suspicions that we were able to verify. As far as we know, these missing children are undocumented dead. Some were only three years old, ”Casumir said.
The group discovered the bodies with ground penetrating radar so as not to disturb the remains and will continue the search.
“With access to this technology, we hope that the true calculation of the missing students will bring some peace and conclusion to these lost lives and their communities,” said the indigenous group.
School residences were established in Canada in the early 19th century to integrate indigenous peoples into the country and closed in 1996. There were 139 institutions run by the Catholic Church and children were forcibly removed from their communities and sent to boarding schools to forget their language. and customs.
This residence was inaugurated in 1890 and in 1950 it had 500 students. Amerindian, Métis and Inuit children were systematically subjected to sexual abuse, physical and psychological torture or performed “experiments” on them.
In 2017, the Government of Canada formally apologized for the forcible confinement of Indigenous children, as an estimated 3,200 died from tuberculosis, according to an investigation.
In 2020, he named two residences a national historic site to recognize the mistakes of the past, ViveUSA added.
“The news found in the old Kamloops residential school breaks my heart: it is a painful reminder of this dark and shameful chapter in our country’s history. I think of all those who are touched by this sad news. We’re here for you, ”Trudeau wrote on social media.
“This is absolutely heartbreaking news. I spoke to Kukpo7 Casimir this evening to offer the full support of Indigenous Services Canada as the community and surrounding communities honor and mourn the loss of these children,” wrote Marc Miller. , Minister of Indigenous Services Canada.
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