An update from officials in Manitoba shows just how hard it may be to identify the hundreds of remains found at residential schools in Canada.
Officials located 104 graves near a residential school in Brandon, Manitoba sparking a hunt for information back in 2012.
The effort became known as the Brandon Residential School Cemeteries Project.
Sioux Valley Dakota Nation Chief Jennifer Bone provided an update to the effort last week, saying only 78 of the graves are considered to be accountable through cemetery and burial records.
The work in Manitoba has discovered at least two gravesites and a possible third.
Chief Bone used the update to call on the federal government for more action including implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada calls to action pertaining to missing children and burial information, funding long-term community health and trauma support, funding long-term community based research across the country, developing a centralized and public cemetery database and registry, and enacting legislation to protect all residential school cemeteries.
The update comes after the remains of 215 children were found at a former residential school in BC
Chief Bone says, "The children buried at these sites must have their identities restored, and their stories told. They will never be forgotten. Every child matters."