Baghdad defence authorities have announced a financial reward for those who can provide information on burial sites of Iraqi and Kuwaiti missing victims of the 1990-1991 Gulf War.
The Iraqi ministries of defence and interior issued a joint statement on Sunday, August 27 for anyone with knowledge of a missing person’s grave in Iraq or Kuwait to come forward.
“A reward will be allocated for those who provide useful information that will lead us to positive results on the ground through communication with Iraqi embassies and consulates abroad or Contact the hotline number and e-mail,” said the statement published on X, formerly Twitter, without announcing how much the reward would be.
Since the 1991 Gulf War’s conclusion, searches have been made for the remains of those who went missing after being slain in the fight.
To provide answers for hundreds of families in Iraq and Kuwait, the Tripartite Commission and its Technical Sub-Committee were established in 1991 and 1994, respectively.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) serves as the committee’s chair, and it is made up of representatives from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. In 2014, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) joined as an observer.
The issue of people missing as a result of the Gulf War is still a focal point of contention between the two neighbouring countries, whose diplomatic connections were broken following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
However, relations between both countries were restored after former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein was removed from power in 2003 during the period of US occupation in Iraq.
As per previous figures from the ICRC, only 215 Kuwaitis and 85 Iraqi graves of missing people have been found, mostly in southern Iraq.
Kuwait has claimed 320, missing people, while Baghdad says more than 5,000 Iraqis remain unaccounted for since the end of the war.