The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said that more than 40,000 people across Africa have gone missing.
The group said those registered as missing were forced out due to conflict, migration and climate shocks. Almost half of those missing are children.
Thousands of people are reported missing in Ethiopia, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya and Cameroon.
Conflicts in those countries played a key role in the high numbers but the situation is most severe in north-east Nigeria.
The Red Cross said the coronavirus pandemic has made the job of finding missing relatives even harder.
In north-eastern Nigeria, the ICRC says more than 20,000 people are registered as missing.
There is currently a search for example in South Sudan for more than 5,000.
The ICRC says there’s been an increase in the number of people whose relatives are missing in Libya – most of them young men who entered the country on the migration route to Europe.
It has become difficult for many families to anticipate finding their missing loved ones.
Many a time those registered missing are never found and when that happens, it is their bodies.
Governments in many of the countries experiencing conflicts are insecurity have struggled to restore stability.
SOURCE: Africa Feeds
