On 10 January 2004, Mazen Al Izzi, a 40-year-old taxi driver, was arrested on his way to work by members of the US Army. In 2008, his relatives were contacted by a former detainee who informed them that Al Izzi was detained in the Fifth Division of the Army in Kadhimiyah, in the northern neighbourhood of Baghdad. Al Izzi's family went to the detention facility in order to obtain information but the authorities denied detaining him. His family has remained without any information on his fate and whereabouts for more than 10 years and is still unable to obtain any information to date.

On 16 December 2007, Ali Al Dahi, aged 43, was arrested at his house in the neighbourhood of Rusafa in Baghdad by Iraqi military officers and brought to an unknown location. As the family got to know that he was detained in Camp Bucca, a US military base, they tried to visit him there in May 2008 but were instead sent to Camp Cropper, another detention centre operated by the US Army. However, the prison authorities alleged that Al Dahi had already been handed over to the Iraqi authorities. Contacted by Al Dahi's family, however, the Iraqi authorities denied having any information his fate and whereabouts, replying that they Al Dahi had never been transferred.

""Numerous Iraqi citizens suffered the same fate of Al Izzi and Al Dahi during the US-led occupation in Iraq: arrested by the US military forces, held secretly in US-administered detention facilities and abused," comments says Inès Osman, Alkarama's Regional Legal Officer for the Mashreq. "The silence of the US and Iraqi authorities on the fate of the disappeared is intolerable. They must finally open a thorough and impartial investigation to shed light on the fate and whereabouts of all individuals they were and still are secretly detaining."

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