From 1863 to 1998, more than 150,000 indigenous children were separated from their families and forcibly sent to these boarding schools to withdraw their identity and forcibly integrate into Canadian society. They had to speak English or French, not their mother tongue, and convert to Christianity. Many children have suffered physical, psychological and sexual abuse and it is estimated that at least 6,000 people died during these yearsaccording to a report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Some of the Indian Tribes of Canada began to investigate the surroundings of the immediate vicinity of these schools with georadar to locate graves. This was the case in Cowessess, where 750 graves were located in the Marieva Indian residential school, or in Kamloops, where the remains of at least 215 minors were found.

maud joseph he personally knew one of these boarding schools. He shared his ordeal with Britain’s BBC six years ago. In an interview, he says that in 1966, at the age of five, he entered the Pine Creek residential school in Manitoba. If the students spoke their own language, their ears were pulled and their mouths washed with soap.. “But the biggest pain was being separated from my family,” Maud told the BBC.

In 2015, the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission he called the government’s policy “cultural genocide”. This commission of inquiry concluded that many minors They never returned to their communities. The Lost Children Project has so far identified more than 4,100 minors who died while at boarding schools and many were buried on school grounds.

This week, Pope Francis agreed to meet with Indigenous Canadians who have gone through these schools. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops confirmed this week that the pontiff had invited delegations to the Vatican and will meet separately with three groups—First Nations, Métis and Inuit—from December 17 to 20.

Almost 75% of the 130 boarding schools were run by Catholic missionary organizations, the others by the Presbyterian, Anglican and United Church of Canada churches. The government officially apologized in 2008, and the three Protestant churches., too. The Catholic bishops in their statement did not mention the request for a papal apology, saying only that Francis was “deeply interested in hearing directly from indigenous peoples.”