Churches throughout Canada were burned due to the supposed presence of a mass unmarked grave of indigenous children, however, exhumation has yet to find any bodies.
QUICK FACTS:
- Twelve churches across Canada were burned after it was reported by anthropologists that they sat on unmarked graves of children buried at the Kamloops Indian Residential Schools.
- Ground-penetrating radar appeared to indicate an “unmarked mass grave” of ingenious children “as young as three years old,” according to Information Liberation.
- Seven months after recrimination and denunciation of the sites, however, there still haven’t been any remains found.
- Jacques Rouillard is professor emeritus in the Department of History at the Université de Montréal penned the report in The Dorchester Review where he pointed out the false reports that prompted the national outrage.
- Anthropologists estimated that there were 200 “probable burials” based on research including disturbances in the ground, according to Rouillard’s report.
- The supposed gravesites where churches were burned in suspected arson, were found across Canada at formerly Catholic-run residential schools in First Nations territories, according to The Guardian.
FURTHER IMPACT OF THE NEWS:
- The anthropological report prompted the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to portray the situation as “a large scale human rights violation.”
- The Canadian Press went on to honor the children who were supposedly buried at the schools as Canada’s “Person of the Year 2021.”
- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commented on the believed discovery saying in a tweet, “We must acknowledge the dark and shameful chapters of our past, including the residential school system that tore Indigenous families and communities apart and has had enduring impacts on Indigenous peoples across the country. We must make sure such acts are never forgotten.
- “As we continue to advance reconciliation in partnership with Indigenous peoples, it is important that we honour survivors of the residential school system and their families.”
BACKGROUND:
- According to Professor Rouillard, in reality, the preliminary report that was used was based on depressions and abnormalities in the soil discovered by ground-penetrating radar.
- First Nation Chief Rosanne Casimir said these “missing children” represent “undocumented deaths,” without a clear idea of who they were, but she said their presence, has long been “knowledge” in the community, and “some were as young as three years old.”
