Family members of people who disappeared during the past 45-days since pro-democracy demonstrations began in Burma are wracked with worry about the fate of their loved ones. Are they dead, in prison or on-the-run?

Searching for answers is no easy task in Burma, where the junta tightly guards information and the basic rights that are taken for granted in most countries of the world are non-existent.

Getting even the most common information from authorities is oftentimes impossible.

For example, the official government figure for dead and injured demonstrators in Rangoon is 10 dead and 11 injured. No figure was given for cities outside of the former capital. No figure has been given for the number of arrests.

However, exile groups, opposition parties and others say the number of dead nationwide is probably between 140 to 200. People imprisoned during the course of the protests could exceed 2,000, say informed sources.

In Rangoon alone, it's believed that as many as 1,000 monks are imprisoned in Insein Prison and its clear many hundreds of civilians were arrested. 

But, embassies and other watch-dog groups are starting the difficult task of making some sense of the unknown.

"We do believe the death toll is higher than acknowledged by the government," Shari Villarosa, the top US diplomat in Burma, told The Associated Press on Monday. "We are doing our best to get more precise, more detailed information, not only in terms of deaths but also arrests."

Villarosa said her staff had visited up to 15 monasteries around Rangoon and every single one was empty. She put the number of arrested demonstrators—monks and civilians—in the thousands.

"I know the monks are not in their monasteries," she said. "Where are they? How many are dead? How many are arrested?"

She said the true death toll may never be known in a Buddhist country where bodies are cremated.

"We're not going to find graves like they did in Yugoslavia. We have seen few dead bodies. The bodies are removed promptly. We don't know where they are being taken," Villarosa said.

Finding missing relatives or friends in murky Burma is a daunting task, made even worse since the International Red Cross has been denied access to Burma's prisons for most of 2007.

Rumors that the junta has secretly disposed of bodies on military facilities compound the families' worse fears.

The sister of Kay Khine Zaw who went missing September 28 told The Irrawaddy, “We are worried about her very much. She disappeared five days ago. Her baby cries all the time. We don’t know how to get information about her.”

Her family said she was walking home from work at a hotel when she passed through an area where demonstrators had gathered. She was picked up by police, an eyewitness told family members.

A family member received a letter from a detainee who is at Kyaikkasan Stadium in eastern Rangoon said 11 bodies were sent to the Rangoon General Hospital and dozens of protesters are currently being detained. Many detainees were beaten and injured, he said. More people will die in the future if they do not receive medical treatment urgently, he said.

Two hundred monks in Myitkyina and Bamaw townships in Kachin State in northern Burma were arrested by the local authorities in a nighttime raid. Their condition and whereabouts are unknown.

The Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma has put the death toll at 138, based on a list compiled by the 88 Student Generation, a pro-democracy group operating in Burma, said AP.

"This 138 figure is quite credible because it's based on names of victims," Aye Chan Naing, the chief editor. "I also think the figure is accurate because of the pictures coming from inside Burma. The way they were shooting into the crowds with machine guns means dozens of people could have died."

The Democratic Voice of Burma estimates that about 6,000 demonstrators— including at least 1,400 monks from seven now-empty monasteries—are detained at makeshift locations in universities, old factories and a race track in Rangoon. There are already an estimated 1,100 political prisoners languishing in Burma's jails.

Meanwhile, dozens of leaders and members of the National League for Democracy and various opposition groups, including veteran politicians and ethnic leaders, are being detained by authorities in unknown locations, and their conditions are unknown. 

When the military government put down the countrywide protest in Burma in 1988, an estimated 3000 people were killed and many were secretly buried.