FILE PHOTO - ONA tribal chair Clarence Louie.

(STEVE ARSTAD / iNFOnews.ca)

The tribal chair of the Syilx Okanagan Nation says criminal charges should be laid against the church and country of Canada after 93 possible grave sites were found at a former residential school near Williams Lake.

The burial sites were found as part of geophysical investigations at the site of the former St. Joseph’s Mission Indian Residential School near Williams Lake.

READ MORE: B.C. First Nation finds 93 possible burial sites at former residential school

“The church and Canada need to be criminally investigated and charged for killing First Nation children at Federal Indian Residential Schools,” said ONA Tribal Chair Clarence Louie, in a press release. “To date no person or institution have been charged in these egregious crimes.”

As the number of unmarked graves continues to grow, he said “each child was a prisoner of war. This intentional cultural genocide was and is to kill the Indian in the child, to remove Indigenous people from each other, their spirit and the lands that the settlers covet.”

The continued recovery of unmarked graves is traumatizing for many Nation members and First Nations people, Louie said.

He believes the atrocities that happened at residential schools are criminal acts and should be treated as such.

“Apologies and empty words from the Prime Minister, government officials or a trip to the Vatican will never heal the pain and hurt that our people were subjected to, were witness to and continue to endure. I truly believe a proper investigation needs to be carried out and those who were responsible or complicit in need to be held accountable,” said Penticton Indian Band Chief Greg Gabriel, in the press release.

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