HRW: 350 Arabs missing from Kurdish detention

More than 350 prisoners held by the Kurdistan Regional Government have disappeared from the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, a Human Rights Watch report revealed today.

Those missing are mainly Sunni Arabs, displaced to Kirkuk or residents of the city, detained by the regional government’s security forces, the Asayish, on suspicion of being members of Daesh, the organisation said.

This has left 350 families in fear and doubt of what has occurred to their detained relatives. Families of missing detainees have been deprived communication and even basic information about the whereabouts of their relatives. However, HRW said that in some cases, families have been able to obtain information from informal channels suggesting relatives were being held by the security forces in other parts of the Kurdistan region.

Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at HRW, said: “The secret, incommunicado detentions raise grave concerns for their safety.”

Families in Kirkuk are desperate to know what has become of their detained relatives.

In one case, highlighted by HRW, the wife of detainee Faisal Sultan Hamed had tried to locate him over the past two years but was denied any information by the Asayish.

Family communications between detainees and their families as well as urgent information on where they are being held is vital to help families of the 350 disappeared detainees, the organisation added.

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As a possible solution, HRW has suggested that Kurdistan Regional Government authorities should work with the Human Rights Commission’s list of complaints to help families of the 350 people identify the status and whereabouts of their relatives who have disappeared from Kirkuk.

The previously disputed city of Kirkuk had come under Kurdish government control after Peshmerga troops captured the city from Daesh when the Iraqi army fled without a fight. Following the Kurdish independence referendum on 25 September  where Kurds voted overwhelmingly to secede, Baghdad imposed sanctions on the Kurdish region and Iraqi forces regained control of Kirkuk in October.