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US finds 500 Native American boarding school deaths so far

In this photo provided by Randi Oyan, is the former Rapid City Indian School, in Rapid City, S.D., on Wednesday, May 11, 2022. The school opened in the late 1800s and shut down in 1933. It was later converted into an asylum and a hospital, and now operates as an Indian Health Service clinic. A memorial is planned at a nearby hillside where researchers say dozens of boarding school children are buried in unmarked graves. (AP Photo/Randi Oyan) In this photo provided by Randi Oyan, is a hillside near the former Rapid City Indian School, in Rapid City, S.D., on Wednesday, May 11, 2022, that researchers say is the site of unmarked graves of children who died at the school, which operated from 1898 until 1933. A memorial is planned at the site. (AP Photo/Randi Oyan) In this photo provided by Randi Oyan, is the former Rapid City Indian School, in Rapid City, S.D., on Wednesday, May 11, 2022. The school opened in the late 1800s and shut down in 1933. It was later converted into an asylum and a hospital, and now operates as an Indian Health Service clinic. A memorial is planned at a nearby hillside where researchers say dozens of boarding school children are buried in unmarked graves. (AP Photo/Randi Oyan) FILE - Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland speaks with reporters in Jackson, Miss., on Feb. 15, 2022. A first-of-its-kind federal study of Native American boarding schools that for over a century sought to assimilate Indigenous children into white society has identified more than 500 student deaths at the institutions so far. "Each of those children is a missing family member, a person who was not able to live out their purpose on this Earth because they lost their lives as part of this terrible system," said Haaland, whose paternal grandparents were sent to boarding school for several years as kids. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File) FILE - Red painted handprints cover the empty spot at a park in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday, July 1, 2021, where a historical marker for the Indigenous children who died while attending a boarding school nearby was removed. The U.S. Interior Department is expected to release a report Wednesday, May 11, 2022, that it says will begin to uncover the truth about the federal government's past oversight of Native American boarding schools. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan,File) FILE - In this July 8, 2021, photo, adjunct history professor and research associate Larry Larrichio holds a copy of a late 19th century photograph of pupils at an Indigenous boarding school in Santa Fe during an interview in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The U.S. Interior Department is expected to release a report Wednesday, May 11, 2022, that it says will begin to uncover the truth about the federal government's past oversight of Native American boarding schools. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File) FILE - A makeshift memorial for the dozens of Indigenous children who died more than a century ago while attending a boarding school that was once located nearby is displayed under a tree at a public park in Albuquerque, N.M., on July 1, 2021. The U.S. Interior Department is expected to release a report Wednesday, May 11, 2022, that it says will begin to uncover the truth about the federal government's past oversight of Native American boarding schools. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)
US finds 500 Native American boarding school deaths so far