Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi ordered the Ministry of Interior to expedite exposing the fate of thousands of enforced disappearances, most of whom are members of the Sunni community, as their impact was lost during the war years against the Islamic State.

A statement by the Iraqi government said that this came during his visit yesterday, Sunday, to the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior and his meeting with Interior Minister Othman Al-Ghanmi and officials in the ministry, as he directed the need to expedite the disclosure of the fate of the kidnapped and the disappeared, without further clarification.

Since he assumed the post about a week ago, Al-Kazemi has taken many decisions regarding the human rights file, including the release of all protest demonstrators, and directing to investigate whether there are secret prisons in the country, and this is in light of the previous pressure from the popular movement that has continued for months.

Thousands of Iraqis were lost during three years of fierce warfare between Iraqi forces and ISIS militants between 2014 and 2017 in the Sunni-majority areas northwest of the country.

Iraq’s cities have witnessed major human rights violations and enforced disappearances over the past years (Reuters)

Domestic political parties and international human rights organizations, as well as local residents, have pointed fingers at Shi'ite factions close to Iran of being behind many of the enforced disappearances.

They say that fighters of Shiite factions detained thousands of young men and Sunni men after regaining the northern and western regions of the country from ISIS, and took them to an unknown destination, and then their news was interrupted until now.

There are no official figures for the number of forcibly disappeared people in Iraq, but the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights (unofficial local) revealed at the beginning of September 2019 that there are approximately 25 thousand Iraqis missing in the governorates of Nineveh and Salah al-Din (north) and Anbar (west) .

In 2017, Iraq declared victory over the Islamic State by reclaiming all of its lands, which were estimated to be about a third of the country’s area that the organization invaded in the summer of 2014, but the organization still maintains sleeper cells in large areas of Iraq and launches attacks between different periods.