Kamloops Residential School

From the Archives: World Press Photo contest 2022

Red dresses hung on crosses along a roadside commemorate children who died at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, an institution created to assimilate Indigenous children, following the detection of as many as 215 unmarked graves, Kamloops, British Columbia, 19 June 2021.

Residential schools began operating in the 19th century as part of a policy of forcibly assimilating people from various Indigenous communities into Western culture of the European colonists and missionaries. Upwards of 150,000 students were forcibly removed from their homes and parents, often forbidden to communicate in their own languages, and subject to physical and sometimes sexual abuse. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that at least 4,100 students died while at the schools. The Kamloops School became the largest in the system. In May 2021, a survey using ground-penetrating radar identified as many as 215 potential juvenile burial sites at Kamloops - confirming reports from oral histories.

This picture was awarded World Press Photo of the Year 2022.