Members of the McConville family and other victims of the Troubles gathered for a ceremony in Belfast yesterday to mark what would have been the 80th birthday of Jean McConville.
The event was held at the premises of the victims’ support group Wave.The ceremony was also held in order to make a renewed appeal for people to come forward with information about the seven members of the Disappeared whose bodies are still missing.
Ten of the 17 bodies of the Disappeared have been recovered, including the remains of Ms McConville from Shelling Hill beach in Co Louth. Those still unlocated are six victims of the IRA: Brendan Megraw, Columba McVeigh, Joe Lynskey, Kevin McKee, Séamus Wright and British army officer Robert Nairac, and victim of the INLA, Séamus Ruddy believed to be buried in France.
The joint North-South heads of the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains (ICLVR), Sir Ken Bloomfield and Frank Murray, stressed again that any information given to the commission is "treated in the strictest confidence and will never be shared with other agencies".
They said: “In light of the media attention of recent days and commentary referring to the Disappeared, we feel it is important to make it absolutely clear that anyone who comes to the ICLVR with information . . . can do so with complete confidence.”
