Irish officials have begun excavating the grounds of a former home for unwed mothers which authorities say contains the remains of around 800 babies and young children who died there. 

“It’s a very, very difficult, harrowing story and situation,” Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said Monday. “We have to wait to see what unfolds now as a result of the excavation.”

The former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in western Ireland — which closed in 1961 and was run by Catholic nuns — was one of many mother-and-baby homes during the 20th century in the European country. The homes housed unmarried pregnant women as well as tens of thousands of orphans, according to The Associated Press.

A detail view of some of the victims names hanging from a tree at the Tuam graveyard

A detailed view of some of the victims’ names hanging from a tree in the graveyard where the bodies of 796 babies were uncovered at the site of a former Catholic Church-run Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Ireland, in 2021. (Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne)

Historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates in 2014 for nearly 800 children who died at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home between the 1920s and 1961. However, she could only find a burial record for one child, the AP reported.

A mass grave was later discovered by investigators in an underground sewage structure at the home. DNA analysis found the structure contained the remains of infants and young children between the ages of 35 weeks gestation and 3 years old, according to the AP.

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin talks to the media

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin talks to the media outside the government building in Dublin on Jan. 22. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

Family members and survivors will soon have the opportunity to view the works, according to Daniel MacSweeney, who is leading the exhumation of the infant remains.

“This is a unique and incredibly complex excavation,” MacSweeney said in a statement.Any remains recovered from the site will be analyzed and preserved by forensic experts. Identified remains will be returned to family members, while unidentified remains will be buried. The work is expected to take two years to complete, the AP reported.

A detail view of the Tuam graveyard

A detailed view of the graveyard where the bodies of 796 babies were uncovered at the site of a former Catholic home for unmarried mothers and their children on the day a government-ordered inquiry into former Church-run homes for unmarried mothers is formally published, in Tuam, Ireland, Jan. 12, 2021. (Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne)

The sisters who ran the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home previously offered a “profound apology,” acknowledging they failed to protect the dignity of the women and children that lived there, according to the AP.

In 2021, Prime Minister Martin issued a former state apology after a report found that 9,000 children died in 18 mother-and-baby homes during the 20th century in Ireland.