Missing Lives

In the Yugoslav wars tens of thousands of Europeans vanished. In a desperate need for news, their families prayed for a message, begged for the truth and fell for blackmail. In almost every case, the missing had been murdered. But without word, witness or body, the bereaved could not accept their loss. Their torment was drawn out as long as ten, even eighteen years - for many it continues still. Children waited for parents to return from the grave. Mothers made up their dead son's beds. Old men couldn't bury their descendants. The living also lost their lives. For the first time in war DNA has been used to match blood and bone, reuniting families divided by death, enabling survivors to find closure and to begin to live again. These fifteen, heartbreaking Balkan stories - told by Rory MacLean and Nick Danziger, two of Europe's most sensitive chroniclers - represent a tiny proportion of an immense tragedy. "Missing Lives" gives a voice to the unacknowledged suffering of these families, to all who went missing by force, and reminds us that in war - whatever the technological advances - there is no greater loss than the disappearance of those we love.