3,000 Kurds missing since Syrian Civil War began: UN

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – According to UN figures, more than 150,000 people, including about 3,000 Kurds, have gone missing since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War.

On Friday, a conference hosted by the UN was held at Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven University in Belgium. 

One attendee was Farooq Daud, a Kurd from Syrian-Kurdistan (Rojava), was arrested in 2014 after the ISIS attack on Rojava. One of his family members is missing and is still being searched for. Such conferences are important to Farooq to find the missing in the Syrian Civil War.

Daud says his cousin went missing after the 2014 ISIS attack on Kobani. He called on both Syrian and international authorities to find his cousin, because, as he says, they still do not know whether he is alive or dead.

Meanwhile, Professor Jeremy J. Sarkin told Kurdistan 24 that such conferences are “an opportunity to talk about the process, problems and challenges but also some solutions.”

“Hopefully we will stop enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions but this process is to be humanitarian to find people. Those who are alive to get them released and returned to their families and for those who are no longer alive to find out what happened to them, where their bodies are, so their families can bury them themselves.” Sarkin added.

The Syrian Civil War began in 2011 during an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's government. The war took a drastic turn in 2014 after the emergence of ISIS in the country, leading to the creation of a global coalition that has waged an ongoing war against the terror group.

Additional reporting by Brussels-based Kurdistan 24 correspondent Barzan Hassan