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The very idea of kidnap terrifies me

Whether you are a young British girl on holiday in Portugal or a mother in Northern Ireland or a group of girls pursuing your education in Nigeria, how can you just disappear?

How is that even possible?

While people disappear really - probably every day - that leaves families and friends distraught. Not knowing whether those men, women and children will ever be seen again.

And, quite possibly, someone else knows the secret and fails to tell. Just as culpable as the kidnappers are the facilitators - the people around them who choose to ignore what they know is the truth. And who go on ignoring the truth or hiding it while other grieve. Or Dear all I really wanted to come tonight, but I don't think I'll be able to, feeling rough and unlikely to be back from London until gone 7pm. I sort of enjoyed 'The Great Lover' but, for me, it fell between two stools. Neither biography nor fiction. It's probably why I've always hated historical fiction as a genre. Can someone let me know the general consensus of everyone else sometime, please? cannot grieve, because they have none of what the Americans call 'closure'.

So, as I feel safe in the knowledge that my children, my parents and my friends are safe, I feel for every individual who doesn't have that basic right.

If only we could have an amnesty for all the disappeared around the world. Let their hiders and facilitators tell them truth, once and for all. Give everyone a little peace.


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