By ROB GILLIES

TORONTO (AP)-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked on Sunday to hang flags on all federal buildings on the half-mast to commemorate more than 200 children who were found buried in the site of what was once Canada’s largest aboriginal school . An institution that accommodates children taken from families across the country.

The Peace Tower symbol on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the national capital, is one of the buildings with half-mast.

“In memory of the 215 children who lived in the former boarding school in Kamloops and all the indigenous children who have never returned home, survivors and their families, I ask the Peace Tower and all federal buildings to fly over the half mast.”, Trudeau tweeted.

Rosanne Casimir, head of the Turk National Liberation Front in British Columbia, said that with the help of ground penetrating radar last weekend, the remains of 215 children were confirmed, some of whom were only 3 years old.

She described the discovery as “In the Kamloops Indian boarding school, people talked about but never recorded such an incredible loss.”

From the 19th century to the 1970s, as part of a plan to integrate them into Canadian society, more than 150,000 Aboriginal children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools. They were forced to convert to Christianity and were forbidden to speak their mother tongue. Many people were beaten and verbally abused, and as many as 6,000 were said to have died.

The Canadian government apologized to Congress in 2008 and admitted that physical and sexual abuse in schools was rampant. Many students recalled how they had been beaten in their mother tongue. They also lost contact with their parents and customs.

Indigenous leaders pointed out that the legacy of abuse and isolation is the root cause of the prevalence of alcohol and drug addiction in the reservation.

Plans are underway to bring in forensic experts to identify and repatriate the remains of children buried at the scene.

The mayors of various communities in Ontario, including Toronto, Ottawa, Mississauga, and Brampton, also ordered the lowering of the flag in respect.

Kamloops school operated between 1890 and 1969, when the federal government took over the school from the Catholic Church and operated it as a day school until it closed in 1978.

Perry Bellegarde, chairman of the Aboriginal Congress, said that although finding graves in former residents’ schools is not new, it is always frustrating to expose the wounds of that chapter.

Nelson Wiseman, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, said: “This sad story is shocking for history students, but not surprising. I don’t know when these deaths happened.”

He said: “The Canada of the past is not the Canada of today.”