Keep searching for graves, report says

An interim report from an international group hired to provide advice on identifying and locating the unmarked graves of children who attended residential schools says Canada should continue funding searches beyond 2025.

The report from the International Commission on Missing Persons, based in The Hague, covers the work done so far and suggests next steps. It also recommends a multi-jurisdictional dialogue to support the needs of communities and for Ottawa to ratify the United Nations International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

“States have the responsibility to find all missing persons, regardless of their background,” Kathryne Bomberger, directorgeneral of the commission, said Thursday in Ottawa.

Ottawa launched the Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund in June 2021. The money is for communities and families to research, locate and document burial sites, as well as to memorialize the deaths of children and return remains home.

Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada didn’t comment Thursday.

A national movement to find and commemorate unmarked graves began after ground-penetrating radar detected possible remains at the former Kamloops Residential School in British Columbia in 2021. Many other First Nations began to search the grounds of former residential schools across the country and located thousands more possible graves.

Soon after the initial discovery, the Assembly of First Nations invited the commission to Canada to help provide advice and technical support.