FACT CHECK: Have “remains” been discovered in Kamloops, two years later?
By Lindsay Shepherd
The official Twitter account of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights tweeted last weekend, “It has been two years since the remains of 215 children were discovered in unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.”
It has been two years since the remains of 215 children were discovered in unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. pic.twitter.com/U8SgwGnEGN
— Canadian Museum for Human Rights (@CMHR_News) May 27, 2023
This declaration, which the Museum has so far left up, is false in every sense.
No remains have been found on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in BC, as no excavations have taken place.
The figure of “215 children” that went viral was actually later downgraded to “200 targets of interest” by lead researcher Dr. Sarah Beaulieu of the University of the Fraser Valley, who was hired by the Tk’emlups First Nation to conduct ground-penetrating radar (GPR) work on the former school grounds.
Because no excavations have taken place, there is no way to claim with absolute certainty that “missing children” are buried in the soil: what people are referring to as “unmarked graves” are actually soil disturbances detected by GPR.
Beaulieu herself cautioned that only a forensic investigation could confirm that these disturbances were indeed burials, as the radar cannot see bones or bodies.