Over 1m missing across the Middle East

Families of people missing in countries like Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen have collectively waited for more than one million years to see their loved ones, Amnesty International reported today.

Marking the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappeared, the rights group said in Iraq between 250,000 and one million people have been abducted since the Baath era which began in 1968 and continued until the 2003 US invasion and the latest government crackdown on protesters in 2019. In April 2022, families of missing people launched the #DeadorAliveWeWantThem campaign to finally get answers, however none have been given.

More than 100,000 people have been disappeared in Syria, Amnesty said. While enforced disappearances predated the 2011 revolution and subsequent civil war, they have only increased since. Earlier this year, the UN General Assembly voted to establish an international organisation that would clarify the status of missing people since the start of the Syrian conflict.

Between 1975-90, 17,415 people went missing in Lebanon as a result of the civil war. After multiple protests outside parliament, the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared was set up in 2018. However, there is no physical office for this and many people working in the commission have resigned.

READ: US lawmakers visit north-west Syria to highlight humanitarian catastrophe

In war torn Yemen, which is witnessing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, Mwatana for Human Rights has reported 1,547 cases of missing people since 2015. The disappearances followed the start of the conflict between the iran-backed Houthis and the Saudi-backed government eight years ago.