In 2001 following the breakdown in the truce between the government and the Maoists, 20 young men left home in Jogimara, Dhading District to work on an airport runway being built 800 km away in western Nepal. Seventeen of them never returned.

Six years on, some of their families still nurture hope of their return, while others fear that they are dead. Most families reluctantly performed funeral rites for their missing relatives. The families have questions they want answered, they want the status of their loved ones made public and, above all, they want closure.

Most of the devastated families, among them 18 children and 10 wives, lost a breadwinner. Hundreds of families across Nepal and thousands worldwide share similar fates.