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About 1,000 bodies of Aboriginal students in former religious schools have been found
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Young people were taken from their families and abused in institutions
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Indigenous leaders want the Pope to apologize for the genocide
Two other churches in Canada were set on fire, bringing the total to eight damaged after the country discovered an unnamed Aboriginal tomb at another religious institution.
The last two fires occurred in the churches of Moraineville, North Edmonton (Alberta), and San Katerie Ticaquitha, near Halifax (Nova Scotia). Cases are being investigated as attacks.
“We are investigating how to do this [eventos] RCMP Sergeant Sheldon Robb told AFP of Morinville Church.
Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, said at a press conference that the “frightening discoveries” of the cemeteries have forced the country to “reflect on the historical and enduring grievances facing indigenous peoples.”
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The Prime Minister urged Canadians to participate in reconciliation in the same way they did to denounce the attacks on churches. He declared that “the destruction of places of prayer is unacceptable and must stop.”
“We must work together to correct the mistakes of the past. Everyone has a role to play,” he added.
Discover the tombs
The fires broke out after news emerged in May that the remains of 215 children had been discovered at a Catholic school at Marival Indigenous School in Saskatchewan, British Columbia. This was just the first in a series of such discoveries.
Last week, the remains of 751 unidentified people were found in an educational unit linked to Catholics but located in an indigenous area.
Last Wednesday (30) another 182 unmarked graves were discovered at a third boarding school, St. Eugene Mission School, near Crankbrook, also in British Columbia. In the cemeteries there will be young people between 7 and 15 years old.
Findings indicate that these people may have been subjected to atrocities during the period when Aboriginal children in Canada were removed from their families and forced to attend boarding schools run by religious entities, 70% of which are Catholic. Most of these young people never found their families again.
Searches for the latest find, in Cranbrook, began last year, according to the Lower Kootenay Indian community. There, the Catholic Church ran a school, at the behest of the federal government, between 1912 and the early 1970s.
The discovery report stated that some of the tombs were only one meter deep. The bodies were likely members of groups from the Ktunaxa nation, which includes the Lower Kootenay and neighboring Aboriginal communities.
About 150,000 young indigenous, Inuit, and mestizo youths were forced to attend some of these 139 boarding schools until the 1990s. There, students were subjected to physical and sexual abuse by principals and teachers, as well as being separated from their culture and language.
In all, at least four thousand young people died of disease or neglect in these schools. An investigation concluded that Canada committed cultural genocide.
In the face of these revelations, Trudeau has apologized for the government’s “harmful policy” and endorsed invitations from indigenous leaders for Pope Francis to come to Canada to apologize on behalf of the Catholic Church.
The Sovereign Indigenous Peoples Federation, which represents 74 indigenous peoples in Saskatchewan, is asking the church to fulfill its promise to compensate the graduates with US$20 million (about R$100 million).
It said in a statement that the church had collected and donated only C$34,650 ($27,950, or about $140,000).
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