Nishnawbe Aski Nation Oshkaatisak Council won't acknowledge Canada Day, will raise awareness instead

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation's Oshkaatisak (All Young People's) Council has announced it won't acknowledge Canada Day this year, and will instead focuson raising awareness about residential schools.

In a media releaseTuesday, the council said its members will wear orange shirts on July 1.

"The Oshkaatisak Council is deeply saddened that the recent discovery of the final resting places of innocent youth at IRS [Indian Residential School]sites in Canada and the United States now numbers over a thousand and is expected to rise in coming months," council memberMallory Solomon, of Constance Lake First Nation, said in a statement. "All children who are recovered, and those children who have yet to be recovered, matter and they will always matter.

"The children deserve to be found and brought back home."

Indigenous communities recently announced that 751 unmarked graves had been detected near the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, as well as what are believed to be the remains of 215 children at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

The council will "place down tobacco for the next few days in honour of the children who have been located," the release says.

Supportis available for anyone affected by their experience atresidentialschools, and those who are triggered by these reports.

A nationalIndianResidentialSchool Crisis Line has been set up to providesupportforresidentialschool survivorsand others affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.