Toronto (Canada), October 29 (EFE).- Canada must criminally punish the growing denialism that rejects the abuse that indigenous children suffered for generations in the country's residential schools and where thousands of minors died, according to a report published at will be known this Tuesday.

The document “Upholding Sacred Obligations: Reparations for Missing and Unlocated Indigenous Children and Unmarked Graves in Canada” includes 42 “legal, moral and ethical” recommendations for the Canadian government.

Following its publication, Canadian Justice Minister Arif Virani said the executive would study the findings and recommendations before acting.

In 2022, the Canadian government commissioned Kimberly Murray to produce a report proposing measures that “ensure respect and culturally appropriate treatment of unmarked graves and burials of children associated with former residential schools.”

Murray's appointment and report follows the discovery in 2021 of 215 possible unmarked graves on the grounds of a former school residence where Indigenous children were forcibly interned for more than a century.

The discovery of possible graves by the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Indigenous people, a group from the province of British Columbia, was the first in a series of similar discoveries across the country.

So far, nearly 2,000 possible graves have been identified on the grounds of former school residences, which were boarding schools established by Canada in the late 19th century and run mostly by Christian religious orders to assimilate the indigenous population.

In these centers, where some 150,000 people passed through, children suffered physical, psychological and sexual abuse. Officially, about 4,100 children have died in custody, although Murray and other researchers say the true figure is much higher.

In 2022, Pope Francis visited Canada to apologize for the Catholic Church's role in boarding schools.

The Canadian government had apologized five years earlier for the creation of residential schools and the treatment of indigenous people, but has until now refused to provide the documents demanded by indigenous Canadians to fully understand what happened . EFE