Kelly Geraldine Malone, Canadian Press, published on Thursday, June 16, 2022, 8:18 PM EDT
WINNIPEG – Charged after a decade-long investigation into allegations of abuse at a Manitoba residential school.
The province confirmed on Thursday that a person has been charged with one count of indecent assault on a woman in connection with the investigation into the former Fort Alexander residential school northeast of Winnipeg.
The Manitoba RCMP did not comment on the charge.
The school was opened in 1905 in the community of Fort Alexander, which later became the first Sagkeeng nation, and closed in 1970.
Mounties said officers from the main crime department began inspecting the school in 2010, and a criminal investigation was launched the following year.
Police said the investigation included a review of the school’s archives, including lists of students and staff.
Officials also interviewed more than 700 people in North America.
Mountis said last year that the RCMP was awaiting advice from provincial prosecutors on the charges.
Sagkeeng First Nation recently discovered 190 anomalies during a search near Fort Alexander School using ground-based radar.
Initial data showed that the irregularities met some of the criteria for graves, but community leaders said more information was needed.
The Fort Alexander School had a reputation for abuse.
The survivors told the Commission about the truth and reconciliation of hunger and harsh discipline. Children from nearly two dozen First Nations attended school for about 10 months of the year.
The commission’s final report says Phil Fontaine, a former grand chief of the Manitoba Chiefs’ Assembly and a former national leader of the First Nations Assembly, put experience in residential schools on the national agenda in 1990 when he revealed his own sexual assault at Fort Alexander School.
This Canadian Press report was first published on June 16, 2022.
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