Sumathy escaped the civil war in Sri Lanka 24 years ago. Until last November she was in touch with her family by phone and mail. Then the armed conflict on the island between the Tamil rebels and the Sri Lankan army military escalated again.

"This is my second sister," she said, looking through family photographs. "She fled to India but I can talk to her over the phone.

"These are my sister-in-law and my niece." She pointed again. "I don’t know where they are."

A few weeks ago, Sumathy submitted a so-called tracing request to the German Red Cross, a service which was developed shortly after World War Two when hundreds of thousands of people were searching for family members displaced by the violence.

At that time, just a handful of volunteers were available to help; today, the Red Cross has a worldwide network of employees and volunteers at its disposal.

Relentless detective work

With just a name, last known address and a list of people who might have seen the missing person, the Red Cross begins its detective work. They start by talking to the neighbors in the hope of finding some clues as to the missing person's whereabouts.

"We only give up when we have found somebody - dead or alive," said Ulrich Austermuehle from the Red Cross tracing service in Bonn.

Last year, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) received about 54,000 search requests, including people displaced because of political reasons and natural disasters but also people who went missing during the Second World War.

Of those, 6,000 individuals worldwide were traced by the ICRC.

Getting a result is crucial

It is important for a refugee to know what happened to a family member, said Austermuehle, even if he or she has died. "That way they can start grieving."

Claus-Ulrich Proelss is the head of the non-government organization Cologne Refugee Council. He said that after the vital needs for shelter and personal safety are met, finding the family is the next priority in improving refugees' everyday lives.

In his experience, tracing "has always produced a result. But the process might be a little bureaucratic and it can take a few months up to a year," said Proelss.

When Sumathy received a letter with the Red Cross logo on the envelope, she was initially very hopeful, said her husband Jeyanathan. But she was quickly disappointed.

In its letter the Red Cross told Sumathy that it was not able "to trace the missing persons in the areas due to violent clashes taking place at the moment." The Red Cross, like most of the aid organizations in the region, had been forced to pull out of northern and eastern Sri Lanka when the fighting increased.

Sumathy and Jeyanathan follow the news every day to see if conditions allow for the search to continue.

Safety concerns for refugees

In some cases, though, refugees do not want to be found. Naturally, those who have been persecuted their whole lives and forced to flee their homes are not inclined to register their name and address, said Christopher Mikkelsen, the co-founder of the non-profit website refunite.org.

The site offers to register profiles with the amount of information its users "are comfortable showing to the world." This may be as little as a name or nickname; also, no email address is needed.

Users can choose to enter very specific information that only someone close to them would know. For example, one could search for a second son, born in Sudan, aged 27, with a scar on his left arm.

People can also leave messages online. Mikkelsen said the website said refunite.org was designed to be easy to use: "It's a very simple system that takes into account the needs of the refugees, especially the low literacy rates and the low computer skills."

Spreading the word

Unfortunately, the Web site is not an option for Sumathy and Jeyanathan, because they don't even have an email address. It's unlikely that their displaced family members in Sri Lanka have access to the Internet or have heard about this particular site.

Mikkelsen's next aim is to spread the word further by building up partnerships with aid organizations. He sees refunite.org as a supplement to the established tracing methods of the Red Cross or other aid organizations.

The combination of the two methods might be a way to help refugees deal with their families' uncertain future and wellbeing.

Sumathy has not given up hope yet. "I want to keep searching for my family," she said with tears in her eyes. "I want to talk to them. I need to help them."

Author: Nina Plonka

Editor: Kate Bowen