The war-torn country has become a Bermuda triangle for disappeared people.
In a report released yesterday, the crisis-hit country’s human rights watchdog reported that 11,000 families have reported missing a family member from 2017 to 2022.
“The terrorist group ISIL has been active in Iraq in the past eight years and occupied one-third of Iraqi territory from 2014 to 2017, some of whom went missing during that time,” the group wrote in the report. Iraq tops the list of countries with the most disappearances, per the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights cited the Iraq-American war, ineffective law enforcement, and the rise of terrorist groups as the main drive behind the disappearances of tens of thousands of people in the past two years.
Iraqi authorities, especially in the south, sometimes violated the due process rights of suspects, such as guarantees in Iraqi law that detainees see a judge within 24 hours and have access to a lawyer throughout interrogations and that their families are notified and should be able to communicate with them during detention.