Call for fresh effort to find IRA victims
SDLP leader Mark Durkan confirmed he had written to both governments urging them to reassure relatives that the commission tasked with locating their loved ones' remains would continue its work.
"Although many think that enormous efforts have been made to find the bodies of the disappeared, in fact this has not always happened," he said.
He added that families "are angry that the IRA has not provided accurate information on where the bodies are buried. They are convinced that with greater will on all sides, the bodies can be found and given a proper Christian burial".
In October 2003, the IRA apologised for the grief suffered by the families of the disappeared. However, despite receiving information from the IRA, the Commission for the Recovery of Victims' Remains has managed to locate only some of the victims.
In August 2003, the corpse of 37-year-old mother of 10, Jean McConville, was discovered after a series of extensive searches of Shelling Hill Beach in Co Louth.
She was abducted and murdered by the IRA after she went to the aid of a British soldier wounded outside her door in 1974.
In 1999, investigators recovered the bodies of Eamon Molloy from north Belfast in a coffin in a Co Louth graveyard, and John McClory and Brian McKinney from west Belfast, whose remains were found after weeks of digging in a bog in Co Monaghan.
The body of 17-year-old Columba McVeigh from Donaghmore in Co Tyrone, who was kidnapped in 1975, has not been recovered, despite searches in Co Monaghan. The commission has also searched for the bodies of Danny McIlhone from Belfast at Ballynultagh in Co Wicklow, Kevin McKee and Seamus Wright, also from Belfast, in Coghallstown near Navan in Co Meath and Brendan Megraw, from Belfast, at Oristown near Kells in Co Meath. In May 2002, searches in Co Monaghan for the body of Co Armagh man Charlie Armstrong proved unsuccessful.
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