January 25, 2008	Friday	Muharram 15, 1429

BAGHDAD: Karim Faraj trudges to Baghdad's morgue, just as he has done every day for the past year, hoping to find some clue about the fate of his kidnapped brother Ali.

So far there have been no signs and Faraj fears the worst.

“Whether he is dead or alive, it makes no difference to me. I just want to find something to lead me to him,” Faraj said.

“I swear I will not be sad if I find him dead or find a grave for him. At least this will put an end to our suffering, at least there will be a grave and a sign saying he is laying peacefully which we can visit.”

Ali Faraj is just one among tens of thousands of Iraqis who have been killed or gone missing in sectarian violence following the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Many of the missing are never found, while thousands of others end up in numbered mass graves for “unknowns”, their identities reduced to a file number at the morgue and the cemetery for families hoping to track them down.

The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates that 10,000 unidentified bodies were taken to Baghdad's main morgue in the year to August 2007 alone.

Few of the missing are found alive, but some families are at least able to identify their relative's remains and put them to rest. Many more never achieve any kind of closure, despite months or even years of looking.

Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul-Kareem Khalaf would not give any estimate for the number of people missing across Iraq, even though his office kept a count.

“All kinds of crimes were committed in Iraq, killings, kidnappings, displacements,” Khalaf said. “No one can give a solution to all of these problems. It takes time.”

Some of the missing are kidnapped because their jobs mean they have ransom potential, others are guilty of nothing more than being the wrong sect in the wrong neighbourhood. Others just get caught up in random acts of criminality.

Reactions among families with missing loved ones vary. Those such as Karim Faraj doggedly refuse to stop searching but others simply just don't know what to do.—Reuters