At least 33 Christian churches have burned down in different regions of Canada since May 2021, when several mass graves of indigenous children were discovered in the country on the territory of special schools, Report informs referring to CBC.

CBC News has examined 33 Canadian churches that burned to the ground since May 2021. Just two were ruled accidental.

Investigators have determined that 24 were deliberately set while others are still under investigation. Some researchers and community leaders suggest Canada's colonial history and recent discoveries of potential burial sites at former residential schools may have lit the fuse.

In May 2021, the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation near Kamloops, B.C., released a statement revealing that researchers found 215 anomalies in the ground outside the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. Leaders said they believed they were unmarked graves belonging to Indigenous children forced to attend the school.

In addition to the schools, Catholic missionaries in the early 1900s built churches like St. Gregory's on reserves throughout Canada, and priests and nuns were sent to teach the Catholic faith to Indigenous people.

While many became devoted followers, today there are deep divisions regarding the role the church played in setting up residential schools.

In the weeks after the announcement in Kamloops, 11 churches in western Canada were burned to the ground in cases determined to be arson by investigators.

CBC News examined police and court records along with media reports and found 33 fires that destroyed churches in Canada from May 2021 until December 2023.

Just two of those fires were found to be accidental. Investigators confirmed 24 fires were deliberately set, while the others were either deemed suspicious or are still under investigation.