Grueling detective work underway to identify lost Indigenous children

Across the country, First Nations have been on a mission to uncover the true death toll of Canada’s residential schools. Teams of researchers, local leaders, and survivors have assembled to search for the remains of children buried on former school grounds.

This week, The New Reality focuses on the work that comes next –an exclusive, inside story of how researchers are using science, archives, and discussions with knowledge keepers to name the children who lost their lives at these institutions.

We travel to southern Manitoba, to highlight the work being done by the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation to put names to the 104 children buried in unmarked graves near the Brandon Residential School -- and to go inside the archives at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, where work is underway on a national list of names of students who died in residential schools.

As Krista Hessey found out, the task is as important as it is daunting: combing through millions of files to collect clues about the identities and fates of these children.

#GlobalNews #TNR #FirstNations

[snippycutwell]

I have not seen or heard of a single shovel in the ground

[ijsk]

Still not a single exhumed body. Nice to see news these days is based on feelings and made up stories.

[mikemol]

Why is the RCMP no longer involved in the Kamloops case if in fact it's the biggest serial killing in Canadian history? The gov't is the one making a mockery of the injustices which surround this sad chapter in our history and what they're doing isn't leading to Truth or Reconciliation. Instead, it's leading to more doubt, division and shame for all.

[towustasin]

One educated white lady says 'people need to know where their children are, it's a fundamental human right' - first nations didn't have human rights in canada until the 80's.

[karenishness]

Still worthwhile. It may help identify the worldwide crime ring involved. The families may have some kind of closure. Be nice to see royal grounds searched.

[humbertsmith]

FUN FACT: The city of Brandon, where this story takes place, was named after a missing child from a local First Nation.

[humbertsmith]

I feel terrible for the owner of the campground, being dragged into all this. I think many Canadians are waiting for actual exhumations to see the impact of Influenza, Tuberculosis and other illnesses.

[Fuzzy-_-Logic]

Well as long as it isn't the poor politicians or the church doing the work right? Everything turned out just peachy.

[ScreamingReelsTV]

Who remembers the Idle No More campaign? Exactly. Now it's a new sloga, Every Child Matters. Best predictor of future behaviour is previous behaviour.

[Sarcasticron]

Wow, it's frightening how many people still just deny that these things happened.

[emadbagheri]

So are there any officially confirmed sites or identified individuals or not?

[GeorgeOrwellWasRight]

So why aren't they digging up the bodies in kamloops? Don't they want to know? Oh wait, they don't want to know that there are no bodies there.

[redpillbulgaria-v.]

Finding the bodies of those "missing children" is like searching for WMDs in Iraq.

[DinorwicSongwriter]

I knew a native man named Joe. He told me that his mother sewed his name on the back inside of his belt loop on his pants when he went to a residential school. The church cut his pants off below the belt loop and told him “your name is now Joe”. He was forbidden to use the name his parents gave him, or to speak his language, and he had no belt to hold up his pants.

[cyankirkpatrick]

They thought by demolished the school could erase the horror that they committed could go away, but it not as simple as that not as the Creator has in the master tape's and is prepared to show all that committed to those who did the horrible acts towards the children who couldn't defend themselves.

[maureenbrophy]

All over the world religious & governments did this to the poor🙏🙏🙏🙏

[CT-ctps]

Miscegenation is the biggest threat to indigenous peoples today.

[Mark-cmdz]

As our Lord said, anyone who harms one of my little ones had been better not to have been born.

[jameshouda]

Ask the parents .where did their children go

[chrisshort]

Wait. So for all time, everyone in the region knew this was a burial site? And for generations there were markers and fences demarcating the site? Up until very recently -- sometime since 2007? And the children may have all been lost to tuberculosis, typhoid, scarlet fever and the like -- and maybe every one of them more than century years ago?