Churches Are Being Burned To The Ground And Vandlized In Canada After 100s of Unarked Graves Are Found, Church Blamed

The national chief of the Assembly of First Nations says he understands the rage, frustration and pain brought on by the discovery of unmarked graves at former residential schools, but funnelling that anguish into burning down churches will not bring justice.

"To burn things down is not our way," Perry Bellegarde said Wednesday. "Our way is to build relationships and come together."

Several Catholic churches have recently been vandalized or damaged in fires following the discovery of unmarked graves at former residential school sites in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

Four small Catholic churches on Indigenous lands in rural southern British Columbia were also destroyed by suspicious fires and a vacant former Anglican church in northwestern B.C. was recently damaged in what RCMP said could be arson.

The fires occurred less than a month after the discovery of what's believed to be the remains of 215 children in unmarked graves at a former residential school site in Kamloops, B.C.

The Cowessess First Nation in southeastern Saskatchewan announced last week that ground-penetrating radar detected a potential 751 unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School.

And on Wednesday, the Lower Kootenay Band in B.C. said the same technology had located the remains of 182 people in unmarked graves near a former residential school site.

Some 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools, which operated for more than 120 years in Canada. More than 60 per cent of the schools were run by the Catholic Church.