Canada indigenous groups in nationwide hunt for more graves after new discoveries

FILE PHOTO: People visit a makeshift memorial on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, after the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc band council encouraged mourners to take part in a national day of prayer to honor the remains of 215 children that were found at the site in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada June 6, 2021. REUTERS/Jennifer Gauthier/File Photo

TORONTO (Reuters) - A second discovery this week of hundreds of unmarked graves at the site of a former Canadian residential school is giving fresh impetus to nationwide searches for more remains by indigenous groups, complicated by land rights restrictions, incomplete records and disagreements over how to honor the dead.

For 165 years and as recently as 1996, Canada's residential schools forcibly separated indigenous children from their families, subjecting them to malnourishment and physical and sexual abuse in what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission called "cultural genocide" in 2015.