The families of two men who were abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA are making funeral arrangements after DNA tests were completed and their bodies formally identified.
The bodies of Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee were recovered from a shallow grave on reclaimed bogland in June during a dig to find a third man killed and disappeared by the IRA.
Tests on the remains have been ongoing throughout the summer, with the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR) confirming they had been formally identified.
The ICLVR coordinates liaisons with former terrorists and the dig and recovery operations.
ICLVR commissioners Ken Bloomfield and Frank Murray said the remains will be released to relatives in the coming days.
"The thoughts of everyone in the commission are with the Wright and McKee families at this difficult time," they said.
Funeral arrangements will be announced in due course.
The two men were found buried on a farm near Coghalstown, Co Meath, after laying undisturbed for about 40 years.
When originally dug, the grave is thought to have been about one-metre deep in the middle of a bog measuring at least 60,000 square metres.
The ICLVR was on site for several months this year searching for the remains of former Cistercian monk Joe Lynskey, also a victim of the IRA's Disappeared, when the other bodies were found.
It is also only a few miles from where the remains of Brendan Megraw were recovered last year following searches at Oristown in Co Meath.
Separate inquests will be held before Dublin city coroner Dr Brian Farrell.
Seamus Wright was from Belfast and was working as an asphalt layer. The 25-year-old married man went missing in October 1972.
Kevin McKee was from Belfast and also disappeared in October 1972.
Seventeen families had a loved one killed and secretly buried by republicans during the Troubles and 13 bodies have been recovered so far.
The remaining ‘Disappeared’ are Mr Lynskey, Columba McVeigh, disappeared on 1 November 1975; Robert Nairac disappeared in 1977; Seamus Ruddy, disappeared on 9 May 1985.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said the confirmation of identity will bring an end to uncertainty for the McKee and Wright families and appeal to anyone with information on those remains still not found to bring that information "to the families, to the commission or myself".
