169 potential graves found at Canada Indigenous site

OTTAWA－An Indigenous community in Canada said on Tuesday that it has identified 169"potential" unmarked graves at a former residential school site, adding to a growing tally of such gruesome discoveries that first rocked the country last year.

The Kapawe'no First Nation in northern Alberta Province posted on its website the results of a sixday survey using ground-penetrating radar at the Grouard Mission site, about 370 kilometers northwest of Edmonton.

The school, also known as the St. Bernard Mission School, was opened by the Catholic Church in 1894 and ran until 1961.

The University of Alberta's Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology led the search.

In a report, it said its findings are "the beginning of a long journey to find answers to what happened to the children who never came home from the residential school at St. Bernard's Mission".

"There remains a lack of justice and accountability for what happened," it said. "There is more work to be done to find those answers."

In February, an Indigenous community in Saskatchewan Province announced the discovery of 54 unmarked graves at two former residential schools.

More than 160 unmarked graves had been found near a former Indigenous residential school in British Columbia Province, Xinhua reported in July.

The Penelakut Tribe found "undocumented and unmarked "graves around Kuper Island Industrial School, which operated from 1890 until 1975 and where many horrors have already been documented, reported CTV without specifying how the graves were found.

On June 30, the Indigenous community Aq'am announced the discovery of the remains of 182 people in unmarked graves around a former Indigenous residential school near the town of Cranbrook in British Columbia.

Investigations underway

Numerous investigations into former residential schools are underway across the country, with more than 4,000 children believed to be missing, according to authorities.

The Kapawe'no First Nation discovery brings the total number of unmarked graves found so far to more than 1,500.

In total, about 150,000 Indigenous children were enrolled from the late 1800s to the 1990s in 139 residential schools across Canada, spending months or years isolated from their families, language and culture.

Many were physically and sexually abused by headmasters and teachers, and thousands were believed to have died of disease, malnutrition or neglect.

A truth and reconciliation commission concluded in 2015 that the failed government policy amounted to "cultural genocide".

Agencies - Xinhua