Team begins digging at Irish bog in hunt for teenager who was one of ‘the disappeared’

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Forensic archaeologists have launched a fresh attempt to find the remains of a Northern Ireland teenager who was abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA in 1975.

A team of contractors on Monday started combing an acre of Braggan bog, near Emyvale in County Monaghan, in the Republic of Ireland.

The bog is believed to hold the body of Columba McVeigh, who was 19 when the IRA killed him on suspicion of working as an informer for the security forces at the height of the Troubles.

He was one of 16 people known as “the disappeared” who vanished after being abducted, mainly by IRA internal security squads.

Four previous searches of the bog over the past 20 years failed to locate McVeigh, who was from Dungannon in County Tyrone.

The independent commission for the location of victims’ remains (ICLVR) surveyed a part of the bog earlier this year.

The ICLVR senior investigator, Jon Hill, told RTE it was featureless, bleak terrain. “It’s very easy to mistake one area for another. You only have to be a yard out and you may as well be a mile out. It’s an extremely challenging terrain to work in.

“It’s been subjected to a number of searches over a period of time and that in itself has created problems with the landscape, trying to identify and recognise it from accounts that we are given later, from what it looked like when it happened.”

Under the terms of the ICLVR’s formation in 1999, no one will face prosecution for providing intelligence that could help locate the remains of the disappeared.

Oliver McVeigh, the victim’s brother, said “top drawer” information gave the family hope that this dig would succeed.

“We’re keeping positive to see, hopefully this will be the time that we find him. But until it actually happens, I won’t actually believe it. We need everybody to give whatever they know. I don’t understand why they’re holding back.

“It’s a long time to suffer, 43 years, but it’s a longer time to suffer when you know he’s in Braggan bog but you can’t find him because of a small piece of information.”

McVeigh’s sister, Dympna Kerr, told the BBC she was praying to God to direct the diggers. “I just want him in his own grave. I can’t put it into words how we feel,” she said.

Investigators found the body of another of the disappeared, Brendan Megraw, in Oristown bog in County Meath in 2014 after an on-off 15-year search.