The coronavirus pandemic is complicating efforts to reunite families separated by conflicts in Africa, the International Committee of the Red Cross has warned, ahead of the annual International Day of the Disappeared on August 30th. Nearly 44,000 people are registered as missing across the African continent, of whom 45 per cent disappeared as children. It is a bit like needle-in-a-haystack work but it does happen – we do reunite people.”In 2019, the Red Cross reunited 897 people with their families, including 713 children. In Somalia the Red Cross works with the BBC to broadcast missing people’s names. Thousands have also uploaded photos to a Red Cross website, Trace the Face, which allows people searching for someone to make an appeal or scroll through photos of others.

Source: The Irish Times August 26, 2020 17:15 UTC