Iraq's forgotten kidnap victims

By Mike Lanchin and Mona Mahmoud
BBC News

Officials say police never hear about most alleged kidnappings

It should have been a time for celebration for Saif and his new wife Reema but their journey back home to Baghdad after their honeymoon was not the beginning of happy married life together. It was the start of a nightmare that has yet to end.

"What can I tell you about how I felt at that moment? I thought they were going to kill us. I didn't think they were going to kidnap him."

Reema, 23, sobbed as she spoke recently about the last time she saw Saif, in June last year.

The couple had just driven through a roadblock on the outskirts of the city of Kirkuk on their way back from northern Mosul, where Saif's family lived.

Reema said that Saif had noticed a car suddenly joining the main road from a side road and was immediately suspicious.

"Don't be scared, he told me - we'll get away," Reema recalled him saying cheerily, as he put his foot on the accelerator.

But as the couple's car gathered pace, so did the car following them and as they rounded the next bend, they saw their passage was blocked by several other vehicles - one full of armed men.

We've even been to see a magician even though I don't believe in such things. But we just don't know what else to do Reema

"We had to stop, we couldn't do anything else," Reema said.

As the kidnappers dragged her husband out the car, Reema begged them to take her too.

"I told them, I'm going with him. But they told me, 'You can't, go home.'"

She was left by the side of the road as the kidnappers and several victims - including Saif - were driven off in haste.

Ransomed

In Iraq's fragmented and dysfunctional bureaucracy, there is no single authority that collates information on cases of kidnappings of ordinary citizens.

The interior ministry in Baghdad, which is in charge of the police, was unable to provide recent data when requested. Diplomatic sources in Baghdad told the BBC that "less than 50%" of all such kidnappings were ever reported, hence the lack of reliable statistics.

According to Cedric Turlan, information officer for a network of about 300 international and Iraqi non-governmental organisations, most kidnappings take place for economic rather than political motives, and many are resolved quickly when the families pay a ransom.

He said that since most kidnapping cases are rarely investigated, "most of the time you cannot be sure who is behind them".

Reema said it took Saif's kidnappers just 48 hours to get in touch with the family, demanding a ransom of $100,000 (£50,000) for his release - a figure far beyond the reach of his wife or family, who run a small car spare parts shop in Baghdad.

False leads

The family offered $20,000 instead, which was quickly accepted. But two attempts to make the drop-off failed and all contact with the gang was lost.

Reema said she then began trailing from one institution to the next, taking in the local morgue, several police stations, the Red Cross, the American Green Zone and even the prisons, in search of evidence as to whether her husband was alive or dead.

"We've left nothing undone," she said.

Several times she was given false leads, such as when she was told Saif had been mistakenly arrested as a member of the insurgency.

But there was no record of his detention at any Iraqi or American detention centre.

"We've even been to see a magician," Reema said with a rare laugh, "even though I don't believe in such things. But we just don't know what else to do."