The bodies of 215 children have been found buried at a former Canadian school for Indigenous people

• The remains of 215 children have reportedly been found buried at a former school in Canada.
• The Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation said the remains were found with ground-penetrating radar.
• The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found thousands of children died at similar schools.
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The remains of 215 children have been found buried at a former school for Indigenous people in Canada, according to multiple reports.

The remains were discovered last weekend at the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia using ground-penetrating radar, Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation said in a news release.

Casimir called the discovery an "unspeakable loss," adding that some of the children were as young as 3 years old.

Casimir noted rumors of unreported deaths at the school; the news release said it's believed the 215 deaths were never reported.

The Kamloops school was located over 200 miles, or 350 kilometers, from Vancouver and was the largest in the Indian Affairs residential school system, where thousands of Indigenous children were sent in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Large numbers of Indigenous children never returned from the schools, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up in response to a lawsuit to investigate the "terrible history" of the school system.

More than 4,100 children have been confirmed to have died at the schools, according to the commission.

The Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation will now work with a coroner and affected Indigenous communities that had children who attended the school. The remains will be protected as the groups seek any records of the deaths.

"With access to the latest technology, the true accounting of the missing students will hopefully bring some peace and closure to those lives lost and their home communities," the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation said.

"At this time we have more questions than answers," they added.