600 bodies detected at school in Canada

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Leaders of Indigenous groups in Canada said Thursday that investigators have found more than 600 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school for Indigenous children — a discovery that follows last month’s report of 215 bodies found at another school.

The bodies were discovered at the Marieval Indian Residential School, which operated from 1899 to 1997 where the Cowessess First Nation now is, about 85 miles east of Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan.

A search with ground-penetrating radar resulted in 751 “hits,” indicating that at least 600 bodies were buried in the area, said Chief Cadmus Delorme of the Cowessess. The radar operators have said their results could have a margin of error of 10%.

Delorme said the graves were marked at one time, but the Catholic Church, which operated the school, had removed the markers.

“My heart breaks for the Cowessess First Nation following the discovery of Indigenous children buried at the former Marieval Residential School,” he said, adding that “we will tell the truth about these injustices.”

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said the entire province mourns the discovery of the unmarked graves.

Florence Sparvier, 80, said she attended the school.

“The nuns were very mean to us,” she said. “We had to learn how to be Roman Catholic. We couldn’t say our own little blessings.”

Nuns were “condemning about our people” and the pain continues generations later, Sparvier said.

Last month the remains of 215 children, some as young as 3, were found buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school near Kamloops, British Columbia.

Pope Francis expressed his pain over the discovery and pressed religious and political authorities to shed light on “this sad affair.” But he didn’t offer the apology sought by First Nations and the Canadian government.

“An apology is one stage in the way of a healing journey,” Delorme said.

“This was a crime against humanity, an assault on First Nations,” said Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous First Nations in Saskatchewan.

“We will not stop until we find all the bodies,” he said.

From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools, the majority of them run by Catholic missionary congregations, in a campaign to assimilate them into Canadian society. The government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the schools, with students beaten for speaking their native languages.