Rights group calls on UN to save thousands of civilian abductees in Iraq

An Iraqi human rights centre has called on the United Nations to intervene and save thousands of civilians who have been abducted and held in prisons run by militias.

The Baghdad Centre for Human Rights said in a statement yesterday that nearly 4,000 civilians have been kidnapped from the province of Anbar while more than 2,000 people were abducted from the province of Saladin.

According to the statement, they are being held “in secret prisons run by militias in the area of ​​Jarf Al-Sakhr, north of the Babil governorate,” which used to be schools and houses occupied by the militias and were turned into detention centres.

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The organisation quoted statements by former detainees as saying that the kidnapped are exposed to horrific forms of torture and ill-treatment by militia members, adding that the statements have been recently confirmed by Saleh Al-Alwani, 84, who was released two days ago after spending nearly four years in the militias’ prisons.

Al-Alwani was kidnapped while passing through a security barrier in the area of ​​Al-Razazah Lake in the province of Karbala.