Atrocities involving children always exposes an unfathomable level of evil.
While stories of a child kidnapping or child neglect will often make headlines, not often do you hear of countless children being senselessly murdered at the same location.
One residential school in Canada claimed to be caring for and educating indigenous children, but in reality, not only were they failing in their educational duties, but vomit-inducing atrocities were occurring behind closed doors.
Kamloops Indian Residential School opened their doors in 1890 as part of a program to force indigenous children to assimilate into Canadian culture, reports the Toronto Star.
The frightened children were taken from their homes against their parents’ will to a school that was understaffed, poorly regulated, and not looking after the best interest of the child.
Ground penetrating radar has already confirmed 215 bodies of children buried on the school grounds, according to The Daily Wire.
Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation was one of the first indigenous groups to publicly respond to the tragedy:
“Given the size of the school, with up to 500 students registered and attending at any one time, we understand that this confirmed loss affects First Nations communities across British Columbia and beyond.”
While the ages and identities of all the deceased have not been determined, Casimir told Toronto Star that some of the victims were as young as three.
How can someone take the life of a child so young and innocent?!
To look a child in the eye before allowing them to take their last breath is inhuman – it is evidence of a deranged soul.
Sadly, Kamloops, which was originally operated by the Catholic Church before being taken over by the state, was not the only school of this kind, reported The Daily Wire.
These collective residential schools were said to have taken in more than 150,000 children, with as many as 6,000 of them spending their final days within their walls.
The Associated Press reports an “estimated thousands” died from “abuse or neglect”.
Why take children out of their home just to leave them to starve or worse?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded in a statement to the horrifying discovery:
“The news that remains were found at the former Kamloops residential school breaks my heart – it is a painful reminder of that dark and shameful chapter of our country’s history. I am thinking about everyone affected by this distressing news. We are here for you.”
In 2015, the Canadian government released a Truth and Reconciliation that acknowledged the horrid conditions indigenous children endured in these schools.
The report read:
“For the students, education and technical training too often gave way to the drudgery of doing the chores necessary to make the schools self-sustaining. Child neglect was institutionalized, and the lack of supervision created situations where students were prey to sexual and physical abusers.”
The Kamloops “school” and institutions of the like were “an education system in name only,” the report claims, and more of a way to “destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group.”
Shockingly, the last of the schools, Gordon’s Indian Residential School, wasn’t shut down until 1996.
The investigation into the children who were buried on school grounds is ongoing and will likely be completed within the month, according to The Associated Press.
Hopefully, some families will find peace with the death of their loved ones and relatives being acknowledged.
We wish we could say that cultural and ethnic genocide is an atrocity of the past, but we can’t.
Today in China, 1.5 million people from Muslim minority groups are currently detained in assimilation camps that authorities are comparing to Kamloops “boarding school,” reports The New York Times.
And historically, reports have arose of Christian re-education camps where oppressive governments tried to stifle any religious convictions they considered threatening to their power.
Society has come so far in so many ways, but in others, have only found more eloquent ways to justify the same horrendous acts that have plagued humanity throughout the ages.
It is time morality be defined and upheld based on God’s unwavering Word – not the ideals of a perverse people.