Earlier this month, The Guardian reported multiple potential ‘clandestine’ burials on the former Kinchel Aboriginal Boys’ Training Home site, an institution of cultural genocide and abuse during the Stolen Generation. Now, survivors of the home are calling for the potential graves to be excavated. 

As reported, at least nine suspicious sites were identified by a ground-penetrating radar which searched some of the property.  

The sites are thought to be clandestine graves, that is done secretly and potentially illegally, rather than a Christian burial. 

Since the potential grave sites were revealed, the Kinchela Boys’ Home Aboriginal Corporation (KBHAC) - which is made up of survivors - has called for all identified anomalies to be immediately prioritised for excavation, and for the Kempsey site to be searched for additional disturbances.  

Chairperson of the KBHAC Uncle Michael ‘Widdy’ Welsh (Coonamble) said that exposing the complete truth of the dark history is necessary.  

“Each and every person who reads that paper will have a better understanding of us and themselves,” Uncle Welsh said.  

“Their policies took us away from our families. I want their policies to give us back our heritage and build back our families.”

With the government being handed the report of the findings six months ago, they’re being called to action to reveal the report and conduct extra searches. 

Michael (Widdy) Welsh and other Kinchela Boys Home survivors Willy Nixon (Gulargambone) and Robert Young (Belmont) at Coonamble High School in May 2022.

“For the future, it’s important to get the truth done, because a lot of stuff has been covered over by the government,” said KBHAC board member Uncle Roger Jarret.  

“To be realistic (additional surveys) need to go down three or four metres to actually do a proper job…otherwise it’s a typical government cover up. Hopefully this makes the news around the world…and makes some people think and do the right thing by us,” Uncle Jarret said.  

“As a child when you’re taken you lose your identity, your culture, the lot. And you also lose your love and your heart, which is still buried in that place now. So all the boys feel the same: we gotta get it back, to say we’re free and not locked in that hell anymore.”   

Kinchela Boys’ Home saw an estimated 400 to 600 Aboriginal people exposed to routine acts of cultural genocide between 1924 to 1970, and has become known as one of Australia’s most notorious Stolen Generations institutions.  

Of the survivors, at least 31 of the boys were taken from areas in the Western Plains.