A SEARCH has resumed at a bog in Co Monaghan for the remains of a 17-year-old who was abducted by the IRA in 1975 and never found.

The search for the remains of Columba McVeigh has resumed at Bragan Bog, where a previous search was carried out earlier this year and where numerous searches were carried out in previous decades.

The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains, a cross-border body responsible for the location of the remains of missing Troubles victims, told the BBC that it was resuming its search after previous information received had been ‘refined’.

UTV News said the body would also be referring to recent surveys of the area which could indicate where ground shows signs of having been disturbed in recent decades.

The most recent leg of the search is expected to take several months, and will require the removal of several trees.

McVeigh, from Donaghmore, Co Tyrone, is believed to have been shot dead by the Provisional IRA in 1975. Although the group has admitted responsibility for his killing, it has never specified the nature of McVeigh’s perceived ‘betrayal’ of the republican movement that warranted his abduction and presumed murder.

He has been the focus of several previous searches, including another previous search at a bog in 2003, as well as a search last summer at a graveyard in nearby Urbleshanny, where it had been thought McVeigh’s remains could have been secretly interred.

The IRA has admitted responsibility for the deaths of nine of the 16 ‘Disappeared’, who were abducted during the Troubles and presumably murdered by their captors.

The Irish National Liberation Army has been linked to the disappearance of a tenth victim. Only seven of the sixteen bodies have ever been found.