by International experts will join Irish colleagues in order to uncover a not marked mass burial for children in a former mother and baby house in Tuam in Westiria, the director of the excavation team said on Monday.
Employees from Colombia, Spain, Great Britain, Canada and the United States have joined the office of the Director of Authorized Intervention (Odait) in Tuam, said his director Daniel Macsweeney at a press conference in the city.
The complete excavation of the location in Tuam-22 kilometers west of Dublin-Werd next week will begin and will probably take two years, said Macsweeney.
The work at the tomb carried out by Odait will include exhumation, analysis, identification and re -arrangement of the remains of infants that died at home between 1925 and 1961.
Niamh McCullagh, the high -ranking forensic consultant of Odait, said that the random nature in which the remains were buried was contributed to the difficulty.
In 20 individual chambers in an apparently provisional crypt two meters below the ground at the location during the test excavations between 2016 and 2017, significant amounts of baby residues were discovered, she said.
Macsweeney said AFP that the complexity of the task is “unique because we deal with so many sets of infant residues”.
DNA samples have already been collected by around 30 relatives, and this process will be expanded in the coming months to collect as many genetic evidence as possible, said Macsweeney.
A 2.4 meter high hoarding was installed around the scope that was built in the 1970s.
The location is subject to safety monitoring 24 hours to ensure the forensic integrity of the location during the excavation.
– wait over a decade –
The excavation has been excavated for a decade since a historian discovered the non -marked mass grave.
In 2014, local historian Catherine Corless proved that 796 children, from newborns to a nine -year -old, died in this place.
Her research pointed out on the likely final resting facilities of the children – a sewage pit that was discovered in 1975.
The mother and baby’s house in Tuam was led by Catholic nuns between 1925 and 1961, and the location was largely untouched after the institution was reflected in 1972.
It was Corless’s discovery of the non -marked mass grab location, which led to an Irish examination of the mother and the baby.
Women who became pregnant from marriage were brought under control by Irish society, the state and the Catholic Church in so-called mother and baby houses, which historically have an iron handle of Irish social attitudes.
After birth in the houses, the mothers were then separated from their newborn children, who were often abandoned for adoption.
The state -supported investigations triggered by the discoveries in Tuam showed that 56,000 unmarried women and 57,000 children went through 18 such houses as part of 76 years.
The Commission’s report came to the conclusion that 9,000 children had died in the houses all over Ireland.
Church and the state often worked together to manage the institutions that were still active in Ireland in 1998.
The Odait team was finally appointed in 2023 to lead the excavation of the Tuam website.
“These children were denied in their lives, as well as their mothers, and they were denied dignity and respect in death,” said Anna Corrigan, whose two siblings may have been buried at the location.
“We hope that today will be the beginning of hearing, because I think they have cried for a long time to be heard,” she said.
PMU/
