The remains of 215 children, some as young as three years old, have been found buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school — one of the institutions that held children forcibly taken from families across the nation.

Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation said ground-penetrating radar was used to confirm the find.

More bodies may be found because there were more areas to search on the school grounds, Ms Casimir said.

Earlier she called the discovery an “unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented at the Kamloops Indian Residential School”.

A report more than five years ago by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission detailed harsh mistreatment inflicted on Indigenous children at the institutions.

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It said at least 3,200 children had died amid abuse and neglect, and there were reports of at least 51 deaths at the Kamloops school alone between 1915 and 1963.

“This really resurfaces the issue of residential schools and the wounds from this legacy of genocide towards Indigenous people,” Terry Teegee, Assembly of First Nations regional chief for British Columbia, said.

Read more: ABC