The search for truth about the 'disappeared' of Mosul
By Jérémy André
Many thousands of people disappeared without trace during the occupation of large parts of Iraq by the Islamic State (IS) group between 2013 and 2017, most of them feared buried in hundreds of mass graves around the country which remain unexcavated. But among the lost, whose families continue to seek news of their fate, are also former captives of the jihadists, who are now detained in Iraqi prisons suspected of being members of IS. The increasingly desperate families of the vanished are demanding action to establish the truth about what happened to their relatives, and the mounting anger has become an issue in this weekend’s parliamentary elections in the country. Jérémy André reports from the city of Mosul in northern Iraq.
In Mosul in northern Iraq, nine months after the defeat of the Islamic State (IS) group’s three-year occupation of the city, the relief of the liberation has now given way to anger for thousands of people among the population whose close family disappeared under the rule of the jihadist occupiers and who complain of being abandoned by the Iraqi authorities in their quest for the truth.
