Time running out in Disappeared search

Published Wednesday, 02 November 2011
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As the families of the Disappeared completed their fifth annual silent walk, the commission set up to investigate the cases warned time is running out and information is drying up.

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Molly Carr, sister of Seamus Ruddy, and Philomena McKee, sister of Kevin McKee, laid a black wreath with seven white lilies at Stormont buildings on Wednesday.

The flowers represent seven bodies that have yet to be recovered, after sixteen people in all were abducted - mostly by the IRA - during the Troubles.

Anne Morgan, whose brother Seamus Ruddy is thought to be buried in France, said she believes the silent walk is very significant for the families.

She said: "Our walk at Stormont each year is a reminder that our plight is ongoing and that every effort needs to be made to bring our loved ones home for Christian burial."

The Disappeared victims all went missing between 1972 and 1985, and every year the families come to Stormont to bring attention to the search for their loved ones.

We are moving towards the end of the plan, the project that we have in place.

Jon Hill, Disappeared Commission

In October 2010, just after laying their wreath, there was a breakthrough in one case - the body of IRA victim Peter Wilson was discovered at a beach in Waterfoot, Co Antrim.

The family of the vulnerable 21-year-old, who had been missing from his west Belfast home since 1973, took part in Wednesday's silent demonstration.

Also walking was the family of 24-year-old Gerard Evans, who vanished in Co Monaghan in 1979 and whose remains were uncovered in Co Louth, last year.

The recent finds have given renewed hope to those who are still searching.

However commissioners tasked with investigating the cases of the remaining Disappeared say new information is now very thin on the ground.

"Time is running out," Jon Hill from the Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains told UTV.

"There are still a number left to be found, so we are reliant on more information coming to us that might help with that."

The families, who have supported each other through the darkest of times, say they will continue to do so until they all get closure.

"There has been some success with other families and the family hope we will eventually get him back," said Kieran Megraw, whose brother was killed by the IRA.

"We will be here whether it is us or whether it's our children. We will be here every year until something happens."

The body of 57-year-old Charlie Armstrong, who was abducted in south Armagh in 1981 on his way to Mass, was also uncovered in Co Monaghan in 2010.

His daughter Anna spoke at the Stormont event.

"Over the years we held out little hope that we would ever recover our father's body," she said.

"Thanks to the dedication of everyone involved in Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains and to the person or persons who provided the vital information we needed, we have been finally able to lay our dear father to rest and find some closure."

In 1999 the IRA claimed that it murdered and buried nine of the Disappeared - Seamus Wright, Kevin McKee, Jean McConville, Columba McVeigh, Brendan Megraw, John McClory, Brian McKinney, Eamon Molloy and Danny McElhone - in secret locations.

The families desperate for closure believe there are people out there can end their anguish.

© UTV News
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