It was around 7am when Fr Obi Ibekwe got a call informing him that his church, the Sacred Heart in southern British Columbia, Canada, was on fire.

By the time he arrived, the clapboard structure, which had stood on indigenous land for a century, had already burnt to the ground.

As he sifted through the rubble and ruins the question he kept asking — himself was: “How could this have happened and what would come next?” The answer, it seemed, was more devastation.

Two hours after the Sacred Heart’s fire was reported on June 21, St Gregory’s, 50 kilometres down the road and also on indigenous lands, had gone up in flames. A third, at St Ann’s, followed.

Fire chiefs said the timing of the blazes, which began on National Indigenous People’s Day, did not seem coincidental. No one has claimed responsibility but the suspected arson attacks came after nearly 1,000 unmarked graves believed to hold indigenous children were discovered at two former schools operated by the Catholic Church.

Since then nearly two dozen more churches across Canada, many on indigenous lands, have been vandalised or reduced to cinders. Just last week, police responded to yet another “suspicious” blaze at a church in Surrey, British Columbia.

These incidents are being seen as part of a wider reckoning in Canada over one of its darkest chapters: a century-long forced assimilation programme during which around 150,000 indigenous children were taken from their families and sent to government-funded residential schools.

Thousands of children are thought to have died from abuse or disease in the schools, which operated until the 1990s. Many were run by the Catholic Church.

“There is a deep sense of sadness in the hands of our people,” Fr Obi told reporters. He said he did not want to speculate on the cause of the fire at the Sacred Heart but acknowledged recent events had produced a palpable sense of “anger towards the Church”.

“We wake up from time to time and hear that another church has burned down.” He insisted that while “anger makes a lot of noise” it did not reflect how the majority of the country felt.

Both indigenous people and politicians have condemned the spate of vandalism.

“I understand the anger that’s out there against the federal government, against institutions like the Catholic church,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “But I can’t help but think that burning down churches is actually depriving people who are in need of grieving and healing and mourning.”

Cynthia Stirbys, an assistant professor who has researched the schools, agreed the recent fires did not reflect the values of indigenous communities. “We don’t really don’t know who did that,” she said.

For Carrie Allison, an elder from the Upper Similkameen Indian Band in southern British Columbia, the destruction of her local church St Ann’s has only served to deepen her trauma.

As a survivor of the former Kamloops Indian residential school, where the remains of 215 children were found in unmarked graves in May, the 90-year-old said she had found joy in St Ann’s.

“The church meant so much to all of us,” Ms Allison said, including all their ancestors who helped to build it. They wanted to see their hard work “cherished, not burn to the ground”.

But for Dr Stirbys, recovering from the past can only be achieved when the Church is forthcoming about its role in the assimilation programme.

“The church should apologise — because they never have,” she said. 

© Telegraph Media Group Ltd (2021)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]