WILKINSTOWN (IRELAND) - In remote bogland in Ireland, investigators search the ground with radar and a cadaver dog for a victim of the IRA murdered and secretly buried in 1972.
Geoff Knupfer, the lead forensic scientist and investigator for the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains, holds a picture of Joe Lynskey, one of the "Disappeared" at Coghalstown in Ireland. December 1, 2014
They mark out grid areas and put down probes at half-metre intervals for the dog to sniff underground on a grim mission to find the last of the "Disappeared".
"We're not just looking for the needle in the haystack. We're actually looking for the haystack before we start," lead investigator Geoff Knupfer told AFP on site near Wilkinstown this month.
Many of the people taking part in the search are former police officers like Knupfer, a retired detective who worked in the 1980s on the high-profile Moors Murders child killings in England.
Their painstaking work is for a unique agency set up as part of the Northern Ireland peace process that acts on anonymous tip-offs from informants.
"We're trying to bring closure to families who are in a terrible mess because their loved ones just literally disappeared off the face of the earth," Knupfer said, as he zipped up his jacket from the bitter cold.
Their latest search is for the body of Joe Lynskey, one of the 16 people abducted by paramilitaries during a three-decades long conflict known here simply as "The Troubles".
Six of the victims have still not been found.
Shortly after a historic peace agreement in 1998, the Independent Commission for the Investigation of Victims Remains (ICLVR) was established.
The search for Lynskey comes two months on from the Commission finding another victim, Brendan Megraw, in nearby bogland after 36 years.
"You don't wake up with a sense of wondering where he is or what we have to do to try and find him anymore," said Brendan's brother Kieran, speaking weeks after Megraw was finally laid to rest beside his parents.
"After he was found, we went down to the spot and we couldn't help think about what he was possibly thinking at the time -- that he was never going to get back to his family -- so there's that relief that he's home at last," he told AFP.
Lynskey and another two "Disappeared" victims are believed to be buried in the same area where Megraw was found in the Republic of Ireland around an hour and a half's drive across the border from Belfast in Northern Ireland
WILKINSTOWN (IRELAND) - In remote bogland in Ireland, investigators search the ground with radar and a cadaver dog for a victim of the IRA murdered and secretly buried in 1972.
Geoff Knupfer, the lead forensic scientist and investigator for the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains, holds a picture of Joe Lynskey, one of the "Disappeared" at Coghalstown in Ireland. December 1, 2014
They mark out grid areas and put down probes at half-metre intervals for the dog to sniff underground on a grim mission to find the last of the "Disappeared".
"We're not just looking for the needle in the haystack. We're actually looking for the haystack before we start," lead investigator Geoff Knupfer told AFP on site near Wilkinstown this month.
Many of the people taking part in the search are former police officers like Knupfer, a retired detective who worked in the 1980s on the high-profile Moors Murders child killings in England.
Their painstaking work is for a unique agency set up as part of the Northern Ireland peace process that acts on anonymous tip-offs from informants.
"We're trying to bring closure to families who are in a terrible mess because their loved ones just literally disappeared off the face of the earth," Knupfer said, as he zipped up his jacket from the bitter cold.
Their latest search is for the body of Joe Lynskey, one of the 16 people abducted by paramilitaries during a three-decades long conflict known here simply as "The Troubles".
Six of the victims have still not been found.
Shortly after a historic peace agreement in 1998, the Independent Commission for the Investigation of Victims Remains (ICLVR) was established.
The search for Lynskey comes two months on from the Commission finding another victim, Brendan Megraw, in nearby bogland after 36 years.
"You don't wake up with a sense of wondering where he is or what we have to do to try and find him anymore," said Brendan's brother Kieran, speaking weeks after Megraw was finally laid to rest beside his parents.
"After he was found, we went down to the spot and we couldn't help think about what he was possibly thinking at the time -- that he was never going to get back to his family -- so there's that relief that he's home at last," he told AFP.
Lynskey and another two "Disappeared" victims are believed to be buried in the same area where Megraw was found in the Republic of Ireland around an hour and a half's drive across the border from Belfast in Northern Ireland
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