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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
National
Ryan Smith

Disappeared search pledge as anonymous donor offers £50k for information

An anonymous donor has pledged $60,000 to help in the search for the three remaining bodies of The Disappeared.

To date, 13 of the 16 victims have been found, however, the locations of Joe Lynskey, Columba McVeigh and Robert Nairac remain unknown.

All three were abducted and killed by the IRA in the 1970s.

The reward, which is $20,000 relating to the recover of each body, is available to anyone providing new information directly to the UK charity Crimestoppers.

They said that information given will only be passed to The Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains and no one else.

Fiona McCormack, Director of Operations at the charity, told Belfast Live that anyone who contacted them would remain anonymous.

She said: “There are three remaining families. The families of Joe Lynskey, Columba McVeigh and Robert Nairac deserve to have their funerals.

“We’ve had an anonymous donor come forward who’s hoping that with our help, and with our 100% anonymous reporting service, we can help to locate these three people.

“They [the donor] have decided to keep themselves completely anonymous, which we totally respect.

“We’re not looking at a crime side of things, we are just looking to identify where the three men are.

“I can imagine that because of The Troubles it is a really brave decision to come forward with information. By calling Crimestoppers people can give information and no one will ever know. And that’s a promise we’ve kept for the last 30 years.

“We think that the commission is doing an excellent job. We want to give our help and support to let the other three families get their loved ones back.”

The Disappeared are 16 people who were taken and killed before being secretly buried, mostly during The Troubles.

The most high profile case was that of Jean McConville, a mother of 10, who was murdered by the IRA. Her body was recovered in 2003.

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