Kinew sits with First Nations leaders to honour children at school burial site

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew took part in a ceremony with Indigenous groups this morning at a campground located on a burial site for children who died at a residential school.

Kinew sat with First Nations leaders and elders in a teepee erected at the Turtle Crossing Campground, south of the former Brandon Indian Residential School in western Manitoba.

The ceremony comes on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and the day after the provincial government announced it partnered with the City of Brandon to purchase the private campground.

The Sioux Valley Dakota Nation says more than 50 children are buried at the site.

A black, metal gate reading Brandon Residential School Cemetery sections off an area believed to the burial ground, and a sign says work continues to learn more about the site and the children buried there.

Kinew is expected to take part in an event later in the day unveiling a memorial honouring the children who attended the school.

The province has said the cemetery was used from 1985 to 1912.

First Nations groups have long advocated for a search of the area to determine how many children were buried there and their identities.

Sioux Valley Dakota Nation previously work with researchers to investigate unmarked graves at the site.

In 2001, the land was sold and developed as the campground.