The United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances revealed yesterday, Tuesday, April 4, 2023, that about one million people have disappeared in Iraq over the past turbulent half-century, spanning from Saddam Hussein's rule and the US-led military occupation to the emergence of ISIS.

The UN committee urged Iraq, one of the countries with the largest number of missing persons in the world, to search for the victims and punish the perpetrators.

However, the report stated that the failure to define enforced disappearance as a crime in Iraqi law stands as an obstacle to that.

The report also stated that "The United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances urged Iraq to immediately establish the foundation to prevent, eliminate, and address this heinous crime."

The UN report also mentioned that about 290,000 people, including about 100,000 Kurds, forcibly disappeared in the "genocide campaign" launched by Saddam Hussein in the Kurdistan region between 1968 and 2003.

The disappearances continued after the US-led invasion in 2003, witnessing the arrest of at least 200,000 Iraqis, about half of whom were detained in prisons under US or British administration.

The committee also added, saying: "There are claims that detainees were arrested without a judicial order for involvement in insurgency operations, while others were 'civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.'"

A new wave of kidnappings coincided with ISIS's announcement of the establishment of a caliphate state over part of Iraq's territory.

The committee noted that "Other ongoing patterns include allegations of enforced disappearance of children, especially Yazidis born after their mothers were sexually assaulted in ISIS camps."

The committee also mentioned that there are estimates of between 250,000 and one million disappearances since 1968, and it also called on Iraq to form an independent task force to ensure the establishment of lists of detainees and inform their families of their whereabouts.