AMMAN -- Iraq's human rights minister, Bakhtiar Amin, on Sunday urged the international community to help his country find the more than one million people who went missing under the rule of Saddam Hussein.
Speaking to officials and forensic experts engaged in setting up a National Centre for Missing and Disappeared Persons, Amin said Iraq lacked the technical capacities to undertake the arduous task on its own.
"Thousands of Iraqi families are searching for the truth, for the bones and skeletons of their loved ones so they can bury them with dignity and mourn them in a marked and final resting place," said the minister.
"However, this is going to be a complex task since we have a severe shortage of forensic pathologists and not a single DNA laboratory to help identify bodies we discover in mass graves," he added.
According to the minister, Iraq has only 24 forensic pathologists among the country's population of nearly 27 million. Most are concentrated in Baghdad and receive between 700-800 bodies for identification each month.
However, only half of the bodies can be identified due to the shortage, Amin said.
The two-day policy group meeting, organised by the Human Rights Office of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), UNDP and Amin's ministry, was held to examine the current status of missing persons in Iraq and explore mechanisms for intervention.
The policy group will recommend the legal, institutional and administrative framework and financial proposals for the centre's establishment, to the Iraqi interim government.
The Iraqi ministry of human rights raised the issue of the fate of victims of summary and arbitrary executions, and those missing or disappeared, in July last year as hundreds of concerned families sought answers about the fate of their missing loved ones.
Back then, the ministry reported the discovery of 262 mass graves around the country. That figure has since risen to 288, with a new mass grave discovered in Basra only this week, according to Amin.
The minister said the teams on the site had estimated the grave held over 5,000 bodies. Thousands of people went missing in Iraq over the past 25 years under the rule of Saddam. Among the missing are those dating back to the Iraq-Iran war of the 80s, the 1990 Gulf War, the 1991 Shiite uprising, and current conflict in Iraq.
Countries affected by the issue of missing nationals include Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia who were present at the yesterday's meeting.
As part of its needs, Iraq has looked at the experiences of Kuwait, Kosovo and Bosnia where the civil war left more than hundreds of mass graves in its wake. Amin said Bosnia's access to DNA testing helped speed up the task of identifying thousands of people buried in graves. "Bosnians were only able to identify 20-48 people each year between 1996-2000. This figure increased to over 9,000 per year once DNA testing was introduced," said Amin.
Countries such as Italy, Germany and France have already pledged their support to help equip Iraq with the needed forensic expertise. The United States and Canada agreed to assist with DNA testing.
Currently 10 Iraqis are undergoing two months of forensic training whilst another 35 are attending a four-month training course in the same field.
The minister said empowering locals with forensic expertise would help Iraq undertake its mission in a more cost-efficient manner.
As for the families of missing Iraqis who have been identified, Amin expressed hope that the interim government would approve a plan to allocate 5 per cent of oil revenues in compensation for their loss.
Yesterday's meeting brought together Iraqi ministers and officials, delegations interested in supporting the centre's establishment, members of Iraqi civil society, community leaders and families of missing Iraqis.
John Pace, the Amman-based head of the United Nations Human Rights Office at UNAMI, said the centre comes in context of supporting human rights in Iraq. Pace said that whilst the centre was a modest beginning, "the step reflected the dedication and commitment of the international community in helping Iraq towards returning to a life of normalcy."
By Dalya Dajani
Jordan Times 2005
