Never-ending vigil to bury dead carries on

Nameless migrants laid to rest in unmarked scrubland, murder victims dumped in mass graves, desperate searches for the missing after natural disasters. Around the world, millions of families wait in vain to bury their dead.

"You cannot close the book on the life of a loved one if you do not know the truth, or what the reasons were, why people went missing," said Salvadoran diplomat Augustin Vasquez Gomez.

His country, where some 8,000 people are still missing after years of civil war, has become one of the latest nations to sign a treaty pledging to support the work of the International Commission on Missing Persons.