Toronto, July 14: Another mass grave has been found near a closed residential school on Kuper Island in British Columbia. The Penelakut tribe in the area said the mass grave was found near a school known as Kuper Island Indian Industrial School. According to the Penelukat community, 160 unmarked graves have been found there. The school was reportedly open from 1890 to 1975.

Such mass graves have been found recently in shut down residential schools run by the Catholic churches in several places in Canada. Between the 18th and 19th centuries, about 150,000 indigenous children were forcibly brought from their families to these schools. In the name of education, they were subjected to various unspeakable atrocities and genocide. Many children were killed and buried there.

A statement about this from the Penelakut community said, the way these mass graves are being searched and found, it is impossible to avoid human rights violations and genocide. It also said these atrocities can not to be erased from the minds of the people.

Pic from the online archive of Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at https://collections.irshdc.ubc.ca/index.php/Detail/entities/48