The remains of 215 children, some as young as 3, were found buried at what was once Canada's largest Aboriginal boarding school, an institution that houses children from families across the country.
Roshan Casimir, chief of the First Nations of TurkEmlops Tekjemps Tekweeem, told a news conference that the remains were identified last weekend with the help of ground-penetrating radar.
Casimir said Friday more bodies could be found because there are more areas on campus that need to be searched.
From the 19th century to the 1970s, more than 150,000 Aboriginal children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools as part of programs to integrate them into Canadian society. They were forced to convert to Christianity and were not allowed to speak their mother tongue. Many people were beaten and verbally abused, and as many as 6,000 were reported to have died.
The Canadian government apologized in Parliament in 2008 and acknowledged that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in schools. Many students recalled that they had been beaten for speaking their mother tongue: they also lost contact with their parents and customs.
Indigenous leaders noted that a legacy of abuse and isolation was the root cause of the increase in alcohol and drug abuse rates.
More than five years ago, a report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission said at least 3,200 children had died of abuse and neglect, and that there were reports that at least 51 children died at Kamloops schools between 1915 and 1963 alone.
Terry Teegee, regional director of the Ingo Indigenous Peoples Congress, said on Friday: "This is really resurfacing because of the residential school problem and the trauma caused by this genocidal legacy for indigenous peoples.
Kamloops School operated between 1890 and 1969, when the federal government took over the operations of the Catholic Church and operated as a day school until it closed in 1978.
Casimir said the deaths are believed to be unrecorded, although local museum archivists are working with the Royal Museum of British Columbia to see if any deaths have been found.
In an initial press release issued Thursday night, Casimir said: "Given the size of the school, up to 500 students are enrolled and enrolled at any one time, and we understand that this confirmed loss affects The Indigenous communities of British Columbia and beyond."
The Aboriginal Health Authority called the finding of the remains "extremely painful" and posted on its website that "this will have a significant impact on the Tk'emlöps community and the community that this boarding school serves".
The agency's chief executive, Richard Jock, said the findings "illustrate how the boarding school system continues to have a devastating and lasting impact on Indigenous peoples, their families and communities."
Nicole Schabus, a law professor at River Thompson University, said her first-year law student at Camloops University each spent at least a day at the former boarding school talking to survivors about the situation they endured.