TWENTY-nine years ago Brendan Megraw, 22, was taken from his home in the Twinbrook area of Belfast. A masked gang injected his pregnant wife, making her drowsy while they waited for him to return home.

Although the Megraw family had their suspicions of who was responsible for Brendan’s abduction on April 8, 1978, it wasn’t until 1999 that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) claimed responsibility for his murder. They admitted to burying Megraw’s body in a field in Kells, Co. Meath.

Twenty-two years ago the phone rang in the Ruddy home in Newry, Co. Down. A French policeman was at the other end of the line.

“We think we might have located your brother’s clothes. We found them in a bag near the river Elboeuf, 20 minutes outside Rouen in France,” he reported.

The clothes belonged to 33-year-old English teacher from Newry, Seamus Ruddy, who had been working in Paris at the time. His family reported him missing six months before when they lost contact with him.

Ruddy’s sister Anne Morgan, a schoolteacher at the time, flew to Paris immediately to identify her brother’s clothing.

“I knew he was dead because I could see the holes in his shirt where the bullets went through,” recalls Morgan.

In 1995, 10 years after Ruddy’s disappearance, a member of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) claimed his party murdered Ruddy and secretly buried his body in a forest outside Rouen in Normandy.

Now that Ruddy and Megraw’s family had confirmation that their loved ones had been murdered and buried in a location made known to them, it was time to finally give them a decent Christian burial. But unfortunately, it wasn’t this simple.

A search of a forest outside Rouen in Normandy in 1995 and several digs in Kells, Co. Meath in 1999 ended in bitter disappointment for both families. The aforementioned gravesites were empty.

“It is a terrible feeling when you realize that there is still no body after all that hope,” said Kieran, brother of Brendan Megraw.

“All we wanted to do was find Seamus and bury him,” recalls Ruddy’s sister Anne, who is still struggling with the pain.

Holding onto some hope of finding their sibling’s bodies, Anne and Kieran, who are members of the Families of the Disappeared (an organization established in 1994 to campaign for families who’s relatives disappeared at the hands of paramilitary groups), spent a week in the U.S. recently in an effort to gather information about the location of their brothers’ bodies.

Kieran, a GAA development officer, told the Irish Voice at a meeting in Fitzpatrick’s Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, “We are here representing all the families of the disappeared in an attempt to reach out to the public. We’re hoping that we might jog people’s memories. People who came here years ago might have some sort of information on the whereabouts of our families bodies.”

“Even if we only find one more body, it means that it will put another family at ease, it will in essence give them closure,” explains Anne.

In May 1999 legislation was passed by both the Irish and English governments to protect people who came forward with information about the bodies of the disappeared, including Megraw and Ruddy, who were murdered and secretly buried. This confidentiality clause still exists.

“Any information received will be treated with the utmost of confidentiality,” explains Anne. “We’re not interested in blame, we’re just want our bodies back.”

In the spring of 1999, the IRA named nine individuals murdered by members of their organization and admitted that their bodies were hidden across a number of areas in the south. This led to the identification of six burial sites including that of Megraw’s, which later turned up empty.

After several extensive digs were conducted the body of Eamon Molloy, an alleged IRA informer who vanished in 1975, was discovered in a Co. Louth cemetery in May 1999 and the remains of Brain McKinney, 22, and John McClory, 18, from West Belfast who disappeared in 1978, were found in a bog land in County Monaghan in June 1999.

It wasn’t until a fourth body, that of Belfast woman Jean McConville, mother of 10, was discovered on a beach in Louth in 2003, that the IRA made a public apology to the Families of the Disappeared. McCon-ville, 37, was abducted and murdered by the IRA after she went to the aid of a wounded British soldier outside her own front door.

The trail goes cold after McConville. West Belfast men Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee, who disappeared together in October 1972, were allegedly kidnapped and taken to south Armagh where they were murdered. Searches were conducted in the Irish Republic, but no bodies were discovered.

In 1975 Columba McVeigh, 17, from Dun-gannon was abducted and murdered. His body was supposedly buried at the Monaghan border but it was never recovered.

In 1981 Danny Mc-Ilhone disappeared from his West Belfast home. A search conducted in Wicklow Hills near Blessingtown, Co. Wick-low came up empty.

Although there has been no admission from the IRA, it is believed they are also responsible for the abduction, murder and secret burial of at least five more people.

Sean Murphy, from Cregganduff, Co Armagh disappeared near his home in 1986 and John McIlroy from Ander-

sonstown, Belfast, disappeared in 1974 on his way to work.

In 1977 Robert Nairac, a British soldier, disappeared from a south Armagh pub. On March 27, 1979 Gerard Evans from Crossmaglen disappeared on his way home. He was last seen on the roadside outside Castleblaney trying to hitch a lift back home.

Lastly, in 1981, Charlie Armstrong, 52 disappeared on his way to Mass on August 15. Several searches have been conducted for the above but no bodies have ever been recovered.

Although Seamus Ruddy was murdered by the INLA, he is still on the list of the disappeared and his family is very anxious to find his body. Anne told the Irish Voice she can’t stress how important the most miniscule of information is.

“We want people to realize that any little piece of information they might consider not relevant after all these years could be the last piece of the jigsaw,” she said. “And if people do come forward and give some kind of information it’s important that they leave a number so they can be contacted again.”

If you or someone you know may have the slightest information on the disappeared contact the confidential telephone number at 011-353-1-4758002 or write to ICLVR, PO Box 10827, Dublin 2, Ireland.

All information received will be treated in confidence under the Disappeared Act, which allows individuals to contact the Independent Commission for the Location of Victim’s Remains (ICLVR) without fear of prosecution.