On 8 June 2014 at midnight, Al Issawi, a farmer born in 1949, was in his home in Salah Al Din province, north of Baghdad, when a patrol composed by officers of the Federal Police and the Imam Sadiq regiment – the armed wing of the Badr organization, a Shia political party and militia part of the government backed umbrella organisation of the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU) – in military uniforms, broke into his house and arrested him. Two other masked men were accompanying the patrol and were, according to the victim's family, secret informants.

Despite the complaints submitted to the authorities by his relatives, including at the police station, and their inquiries in several detention centres, they were always denied information on his fate and whereabouts.

"Enforced disappearances in Iraq are so widespread that not even elderly people, such as Al Issawi, are spared. His relatives are extremely worried over his health conditions," comments Inès Osman, Legal Officer for the Mashreq at Alkarama. "The fact that his abduction was conducted by a joint patrol of police officers and members of the Imam Sadiq regiment clearly shows the support and endorsement by the government of militias' widespread abuses."

Alkarama recalls that the practice of enforced disappearance is widespread and systematic in Iraq, as noted by the CED in September 2015, when this UN Committee analysed the situation of enforced disappearance in Iraq. On that occasion, the UN experts called upon the Iraqi authorities to ensure that all persons who were forcibly disappeared and whose fate is not yet known are searched for and located without delay.

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