A mass grave containing the remains of 215 children has been found in Canada at a former residential school set up to assimilate indigenous people, BBC reports.
The children were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia that closed in 1978.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was a “painful reminder” of a “shameful chapter of our country's history.”
Canada’s residential schools were compulsory boarding schools run by the government and religious authorities during the 19th and 20th Centuries with the aim of forcibly assimilating indigenous youth.
Kamloops Indian Residential School was the largest in the residential system. Opened under Roman Catholic administration in 1890, the school had as many as 500 students when enrolment peaked in the 1950s.
