Fires have destroyed two more Catholic churches in indigenous communities in western Canada, a report by TRT World has said.
Authorities consider the two fires at the St. Ann's Catholic Church and the Chopaka Catholic Church "suspicious" and are looking to determine any possible connection to the church fires in both Penticton and Oliver earlier this week.
St. Ann's Catholic Church on the Upper Similkameen Indian Band and the Chopaka Catholic Church on the Lower Similkameen Indian Band were set ablaze less than an hour apart on Friday in the early morning, federal police said.
The destruction of the four churches comes at a raw time for many of Canada's indigenous peoples still struggling with the discovery, using ground-penetrating radar mapping, of the remains of 215 schoolchildren at a former residential school in Kamloops last month, and 751 more unmarked graves at another school in Marieval this week.
Some 150,000 indigenous, Inuit and Metis youngsters were taken from their communities and forcibly enrolled at the residential schools.
Many were subjected to ill-treatment and sexual abuse, and more than 4,000 died of disease and neglect in the schools, according to a truth and reconciliation commission that concluded Canada had committed "cultural genocide."
KI/PR
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