At least 973 Indigenous children died while attending boarding schools run or supported by the United States government, a federal report has found, prompting calls for an apology for the pain suffered at the abuse-riddled institutions.

The report, released on Tuesday and commissioned by US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, found dozens of marked and unmarked graves at 65 of the more than 400 US boarding schools that were established across the country.

The findings don’t specify how each child died, but the causes of death included sickness, accidents and abuse during a 150-year period that ended in 1969, officials said.

The schools were set up to forcibly assimilate Indigenous children into white society, and survivors have described the intergenerational trauma their families and communities continue to experience as a result of the institutions.

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