Canada marks first national holiday for indigenous reconciliation

A student walks past a display at Hillcrest High School on Canada's first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, honouring the lost children and survivors of Indigenous residential schools, their families and communities, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada September 30, 2021. REUTERS/Blair Gable

OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada on Thursday held its the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to honor the lost children and survivors of indigenous schools, following the gruesome discovery of more than 1,000 unmarked graves https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/unmarked-graves-found-canadian-former-residential-school-sites-2021-07-06 at two former schools earlier this year.

The so-called residential school https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/no-chance-be-children-life-canadas-residential-schools-2021-06-10 system, which operated between 1831 and 1996, removed about 150,000 indigenous children from their families. Some were subjected them to abuse, rape and malnutrition at schools in what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 called "cultural genocide."