A/HRC/41/36/Add.1 in tabulation B the status of individuals who were the subject of communications with regard to the application of the death penalty. She urges all States concerned to provide updated information on the status of the subjects of these urgent appeals. 33. The Special Rapporteur applauds those countries that have added their names to the list of States that have abolished the death penalty. Data for 2018 show an overall decrease in the use of the death penalty, as well as a fall in the number of States imposing the death sentence and carrying out executions. In 2018, Burkina Faso abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes, Malaysia abolished the death penalty for 11 offences and the Gambia declared an official moratorium on executions. The five countries where most executions took place during 2018 are: China, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Saudi Arabia, Viet Nam and Iraq. Thailand carried out its first execution since 2009, while Sri Lanka might resume the death penalty for drug-related offences, after maintaining a moratorium on capital punishment since 1976. Other countries were executions were carried out are: Belarus, Botswana, Japan, Singapore, South Sudan, the Sudan, Taiwan and the United States of America. 34. The Special Rapporteur took up a series of communications involving foreign fighters facing prosecution and trials for capital punishment offences under Iraq’s Anti-Terrorism Law no. 13, which features an overly broad definition of terrorism. An estimated 40,000 foreign nationals travelled to Iraq to join and fight for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Accordingly, an estimated 3,000 ISIL members or collaborators including foreign nationals are awaiting trial before Iraqi courts. Approximately 600 are believed to be foreign women who joined ISIL under various circumstances; some may have joined willingly, engaging in combat and human rights abuses while others may have been misled or forced to Iraq or into marriages with ISIL fighters. 35. The Special Rapporteur has sent communications in this regard to Iraq and several of the foreign fighter’s countries of origin including Australia, Armenia, Canada, Belgium, France, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America. The Special Rapporteur calls on these countries to provide consular assistance to their nationals under Iraqi custody and to take all necessary measures to prevent the imposition of an unfair and unlawful death sentence. A country that fails to do so could be said to have not fulfilled its duty of due diligence to protect its nationals from arbitrary deprivations of life. 36. The graph below reflects the number of communications sent to each State on alleged violations in relation to the death penalty. 13