Hundreds more unmarked graves found at erstwhile Canadian residential school

(Reuters) - An indigenous group in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan yesterday said it had found the unmarked graves of an estimated 751 people at a nowdefunct Catholic residential school, just weeks after a similar, smaller discovery rocked the country.

The latest discovery, the biggest to date, is a grim reminder of the years of abuse and discrimination indigenous communities have suffered in Canada even as they continue to fight for justice and better living conditions.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was "terribly saddened" by the discovery at Marieval Indian Residential School about 87 miles (140 km) from the provincial capital Regina. He told indigenous people that "the hurt and the trauma that you feel is Canada’s responsibility to bear."

It is not clear how many of the remains detected belong to children, Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme told reporters, adding that oral stories mentioned adults being buried at the site.

Delorme later told Reuters some of the graves belong to non-indigenous people who may have belonged to the church. He said the First Nation hopes to find the gravestones that once marked these graves, after which they may involve police.

Delorme said the church that ran the school removed the headstones.

"We didn't remove the headstones. Removing headstones is a crime in this country. We are treating this like a crime scene," he said.

The residential school system, which operated between 1831 and 1996, removed about 150,000 indigenous children from their families and brought them to Christian residential schools, mostly Catholic, run on behalf of the federal government.

"Canada will be known as a nation who tried to exterminate the First Nations," said Bobby Cameron, Chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents 74 First Nations in Saskatchewan. "This is just the beginning."