At an emotional rally Thursday evening at Ground Zero, relatives of 9/11 victims pushed for a more comprehensive search for human remains.

More than 150 people, including some relatives of the 2,749 people killed in the attacks gathered at the New York rally. Some called for federal intervention in the form of the Joint PoW/MIA Accounting Command, a military unit that specializes in finding remains.

Relatives of 9/11 victims hold up signs during a rally regarding the search for human remains at the World Trade Center site on Thursday.
(Frank Franklin II/Associated Press)

"We shouldn't have to rally. We shouldn't have to beg," said Robin Audiffred, who has no remains for her husband, James. "You need to make it right. You need to do whatever it takes at this point."

Their cause has been spurred in the last two weeks by the discovery of over 200 pieces of bone and other remains in an abandoned manhole along the west side of the World Trade Center site. The manhole had been paved over and forgotten after a service road had been built.

"Enough of this haphazard discovery of human remains,'' Diane Horning, president of WTC Families for Proper Burial, told Reuters.

"How many more times should we wake up in the morning, open our newspaper and read that recognizable body parts and personal items have been literally right under our feet every September 11 since our loved ones have been massacred?''

Horning lost her 26-year-old son Matthew in the attack.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has promised a more extensive search around the site, but has maintained that it is the city's responsibility and that construction at the site won't stop.

Three confirmed

Meanwhile, New York's medical examiner's office Thursday officially confirmed remains of three more victims. While their remains were discovered years ago, DNA testing was needed for a positive identification.

They included Karen Martin, a 40-year-old flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower. A fellow flight attendant reported during a call to the airline's flight services office on Sept. 11 that Martin had been stabbed by one of the hijackers.

Martin's cousin, Michelle Pare, said news of the recovery was "bittersweet."

"We thought she just disintegrated — her body did — not her memory," said Pare. "Now it's a bigger relief. We really have her."

The second identified person was Douglas Joel Stone, a 54-year-old passenger from Dover, N.H. The third person was a male victim whose family asked that his identity not be disclosed.

The medical examiner has identified over half of the nearly 21,000 remains that have been recovered.

With files from the Associated Press