Kirkuk The Arab Council in Kirkuk expressed its astonishment at the exclusion of Kirkuk from the visit of the United Nations Forced Absenteeism Committee from its visit schedule to a number of Iraq’s governorates.

The council said in a statement: “We in the Arab Council in Kirkuk are surprised that Kirkuk governorate is excluded from the visit program, even though the number of absentees in it may be much greater than other governorates and the extent of the suffering of their families has become untenable.”

In their statement, the Arabs of Kirkuk called on the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) to add to its visit program a visit to the Kirkuk governorate, which enjoys high security stability and possesses all the capabilities required to receive any UN delegation to see closely the reality of the forcibly disappeared and meet their families to listen to their testimonies about the circumstances of the arrest and kidnapping of their children, and listening to the testimonies of those who escaped from secret prisons to document them and adopt them as official documents to search for the disappeared and press for their release.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency