Many thousands of Africans have disappeared in conflict

When The ICRCNGOICRC jihadists of attacked Lydia Adamu’s village in north-east Nigeria in 2015, her parents and their six children fled—with nothing. At first they seemed relatively lucky, reaching the safety of Yola, a city hundreds of kilometres to the south. When word came that their village was quiet, her parents ventured back to salvage a few belongings. What happened next is murky. All Ms Adamu knows is that “armed men came again, shooting. They seized my parents on motorbikes and disappeared.” She has never seen them again and has no idea if they are dead or alive.Her parents are among some 24,000 missing people in Nigeria registered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (), a global . That is a tiny fraction of the true number in Nigeria, says Anne-Sofie Stockman of the in Abuja, the capital. Short of cash, the committee focuses on the north-east, where the across swathes of territory. Yet the ranks of the missing are swelling elsewhere in Nigeria, because of kidnappers, separatists and clashes between farmers and herders. Even in the north-east, countless cases are never registered.