TORONTO: Indigenous groups in Canada are calling for a nationwide search for mass graves at residential school sites after the discovery of the remains of 215 children at one former school last week shocked the country.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday that searching for more mass graves was “an important part of discovering the truth”, but did not make specific commitments.

First Nation, an indigenous group, announced last week they had found the remains of 215 children, some as young as three years old, buried at the site

of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, once Canada’s largest such school.

Between 1831 and 1996, Canada’s residential school system forcibly separated children from their families, subjecting them to abuse, malnutrition and rape in what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission tasked with investigating the system called “cultural genocide” in 2015.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2021