China and Russia urge independent probe into Canada’s treatment of indigenous people as anger over mass-grave discovery rages — RT

 Amidst unabating public anger in Canada over the discovery last month of a mass grave of indigenous children, a coalition of countries, including China and Russia, has called for a “thorough and impartial” probe into the tragedy.

The remains of 215 children, some as young as three years old, were found in May by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Nation in the province of British Columbia at the site of what was once the largest residential school for the forced assimilation of indigenous children.

An estimated 150,000 children were forcibly boarded in, and many were subjected to abuse at, the infamous government and church-run school system – which was operational from the 1830s to as recently as the 1990s – in what Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission termed in 2015 as a “cultural genocide.”

In a statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, Jiang Duan, a senior official at China’s mission to the UN, urged for a “thorough and impartial investigation into all cases where crimes were committed against the indigenous people, especially children, so as to bring those responsible to justice, and offer full remedy to victims.”

The statement, which was supported by Russia, Belarus, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela, comes at a time when Canada has seen outrage boil over regarding the abuses and the prolonged absence of transparency and accountability on the part of either the government or the church.