A Canadian Indigenous group has announced the "horrific and shocking discovery" of hundreds of unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school, just weeks after a similar discovery shook the country.
The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations said in a statement on Wednesday that the number of newly found unmarked graves was "the most significantly substantial to date in Canada." The statement did not specify numbers.
The group said it would announce at a news conference on Thursday morning "the horrific and shocking discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School" in Saskatchewan.
It comes after the remains of 215 Indigenous children were found at the site of another former Catholic-operated residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia, forcing Canadians to confront the legacy of an abusive system which forcibly separated the children from their families.
National chief of Canadian advocacy organisation Assembly of First Nations, Perry Bellegarde, said on Wednesday that the latest discovery was "absolutely tragic, but not surprising".
"I urge all Canadians to stand with First Nations in this extremely difficult and emotional time," he said on Twitter.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said he understood that many of those discovered in unmarked graves at Marieval were children, and it was "heartbreaking" to think that they had lost their lives after being separated from their families.
Between 1831 and 1996, about 150,000 Indigenous children were sent to Canadian residential schools, which were run by the government and church groups.
The children were malnourished and physically and sexually abused in what the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission called "cultural genocide" in 2015.
Survivors who spoke with Reuters have recalled perpetual hunger and haunting loneliness, and schools run under the threat and frequent use of force.
"The violence there was paramilitary, and it was controlled with great strictness," Kamloops survivor Saa Hiil Thut, 72, said earlier this month.
"Punishment was the way they kept silence and kept order."
In 2008, the Canadian government formally apologised for the system. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently said the Catholic Church must take responsibility for its role in running many of the schools and provide records to help identify remains.
Earlier this month, Pope Francis said he was pained but did not apologise, in a statement dismissed by survivors.
"We're all pained and saddened. Who isn't? This is a worldwide travesty," Chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations in Saskatchewan, Bobby Cameron, said.
"How hard is it for the Pope to say: 'I'm very sorry for the way our organisation treated the First Nations people, the First Nations students during those times, we are sorry, we pray.'"
With Reuters.
