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Indigenous Kids' Bodies Recovered — Not Discovered, Says Canada's Assembly Of First Nations Chief

caption: Solar lights and flags mark the spots where 751 human remains were recently discovered in unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School on the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan on June 27, 2021. (Geoff Robins/AFP/Getty Images)
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Solar lights and flags mark the spots where 751 human remains were recently discovered in unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School on the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan on June 27, 2021. (Geoff Robins/AFP/Getty Images)

This is a very emotional moment for Canada’s Indigenous communities.

RoseAnne Archibald was recently elected Canada’s first female national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, leading more than 900,000 Indigenous people in 634 First Nations Communities.

Just days later, another 160 unmarked graves were uncovered at a former Indigenous residential school site on a Southern Gulf Island off of British Columbia. This discovery adds to the more than 1,000 graves believed to contain remains of children forcibly taken from their families and housed in the so-called schools from the late 1880s to the 1990s.

Last week ended with heart-wrenching testimony about the 215 unmarked gravesites at the Kamloops Residential School in British Columbia.

Host Robin Young talks to Chief Archibald about the latest developments in this ongoing story.

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This article was originally published on WBUR.org. [Copyright 2021 NPR]

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