"Bring these 25 chil­dren and adults home from Syr­ia." That ap­peal was made in let­ters to Gov­ern­ment on May 24 and up to last Fri­day by the Con­cerned Mus­lims of T&T (CMTT) group seek­ing to bring "home" chil­dren and adults who are rel­a­tives of Is­lam­ic State (Isis) fight­ers.

They have been at the al Hol refugee camp in north­east­ern Syr­ia fol­low­ing Isis' col­lapse to in­ter­na­tion­al forces in the last year—and rel­a­tives of theirs in T&T have asked CMTT to seek their re­turn.

The in­di­vid­u­als are con­nect­ed to T&T na­tion­als who joined Isis in con­flict zones over the pe­ri­od the ter­ror­ist group re­cruit­ed peo­ple world­wide from 2012.

The chil­dren range in ages from one to nine years and some were born in Syr­ia re­cent­ly.

Al­so lo­cat­ed at the camp are peo­ple from 30 to 40 coun­tries who were de­tained when Isis top­pled. Camp pop­u­la­tion up to last week was 73,043 with very poor con­di­tions, the Unit­ed Na­tions stat­ed. ( See be­low)

In 2016, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon said 130 T&T na­tion­als—fight­ers and fam­i­lies—went to Isis con­flict zones. A sub­se­quent fig­ure of 180 was giv­en in the 2017 Bud­get de­bate. An in­tel­li­gence list ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia in 2016 showed 105 de­part­ing—in­clud­ing fam­i­lies—over 2012/2015. This in­clud­ed for­mer En­ter­prise res­i­dent Shane Craw­ford and oth­ers of­fi­cial­ly deemed ter­ror­ists and killed in bat­tle in 2017.

CMTT, head­ed by Imam Sher­az Ali and Im­ti­az Mo­hammed, sent let­ters on May 24 and up to last Fri­day to the For­eign Af­fairs and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ters seek­ing the State's in­ter­ven­tion to bring "home" the chil­dren and adults. They sub­mit­ted lists of those in camps. (See list)

CMTT rep­re­sents some con­gre­ga­tions with­in T&T's Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty in­clud­ing some mosques in North, Cen­tral, and South. The let­ter ac­knowl­edged there are dif­fer­ent sects in the com­mu­ni­ty, the vast ma­jor­i­ty of whom are peace­ful, law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. And there has been a rise in fun­da­men­tal­ism across the board.

But the group stat­ed it was ap­proached by "rel­a­tives of some of our cit­i­zens who're now re­port­ed­ly suf­fer­ing at the al Hol camp, par­tic­u­lar­ly women and chil­dren. Our feed­back sug­gests most of the T&T men who'd been in Syr­ia and Iraq have been killed...We've al­ready re­ceived re­ports of the death of some of our chil­dren in the camp."

CMTT said there was analy­sis to ob­tain da­ta on those who went to con­flict zones.

Mo­hammed sub­se­quent­ly said the chil­dren and oth­ers in the camp in­clude rel­a­tives of T&T fa­thers killed in bat­tle.

He ac­knowl­edged some of the men may have al­so tak­en for­eign sec­ond wives and had chil­dren, while chil­dren could al­so have been born to T&T women with oth­er for­eign fight­ers.

"But the most are from T&T moth­ers and T&T men. On­ly one or two of the men we've learned had Syr­i­an wives. Lo­cal rel­a­tives of these peo­ple want their kin back home. They were con­tact­ed by some in the camp who might have been able to bor­row a phone, or via the Red Cross."

Say­ing the Chil­dren's Act al­lows the adop­tion of for­eign chil­dren, Mo­hammed added, "Gov­ern­ment has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to seek the in­ter­est of cit­i­zens in parts of the world de­spite their sit­u­a­tion/in­volve­ment and as­sist in re­turn­ing them or re­solv­ing their sit­u­a­tion. Some of these chil­dren lost par­ents. These are moth­ers and daugh­ters, they pose no threat."

'Isis or­phans be­ing sent home'

CMTT is will­ing to meet repa­tri­a­tion costs. Its let­ter stat­ed, "We al­ready have mech­a­nisms and per­son­nel with­in the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty will­ing to pro­vide much-need­ed sup­port for the in­te­gra­tion of these cit­i­zens and are will­ing to deep­en col­lab­o­ra­tion with state of­fi­cials to mon­i­tor and pro­mote the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the rest of the pop­u­la­tion."

The group said if Gov­ern­ment made an of­fi­cial re­port to the North/East Syr­i­an ad­min­is­tra­tion for re­lease of the peo­ple, CMTT would send "at least two rep­re­sen­ta­tives from among the fam­i­lies to ac­com­pa­ny any state of­fi­cial".

The group not­ed Fe­li­cia Perkins who went to Syr­ia and found her two sons in a camp with In­ter­na­tion­al Red Cross help.

Oth­er CMTT mem­bers not­ed since April and this month or­phaned chil­dren "from Isis fam­i­lies" were hand­ed over to for­eign min­istries of Su­dan, US, France, Hol­land, Bel­gium.

Govt han­dles re­turnee is­sues very care­ful­ly—Young

While there was no word from For­eign Af­fairs' Den­nis Moses did not re­ply, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young re­spond­ing to emailed queries and whether Team Nightin­gale will be asked to ex­am­ine the is­sue, said he wasn't quite cer­tain what let­ters were be­ing re­ferred to. But he stressed, "The Gov­ern­ment han­dles all is­sues as­so­ci­at­ed with any re­turnees from the Isis war zones very care­ful­ly.

"Team Nightin­gale was set up as a mul­ti-agency task force re­port­ing to the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to deal specif­i­cal­ly with the com­plex­i­ties of per­sons claim­ing to be cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go who may be in the war zones or ar­eas near to the war zones.

"The Gov­ern­ment will pro­tect the pub­lic's in­ter­est and will not be un­du­ly in­flu­enced by any in­di­vid­ual(s) or agen­cies, in­clud­ing in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies with agen­das, in­to com­pro­mis­ing the process and poli­cies de­signed to deal with this sit­u­a­tion."

CMTT mem­bers sched­uled to at­tend a din­ner at the Prime Min­is­ter's res­i­dence Sat­ur­day night ho­n­our­ing late Imam Mush­taq Ah­mad Su­laimani said they would try seek­ing a meet­ing with Young.

CMTT hits US warn­ing on re­turnees.

Mo­hammed slammed last Fri­day's warn­ing by Chief Mil­i­tary Li­ai­son of­fi­cer Col Clau­dia Car­riza­les that re­turn­ing fight­ers could pose a threat to T&T. She said na­tion­als de­tained in Syr­ia and Iraq "are ex­pect­ed to re­turn this year" and "hard­ened" fight­ers de­tained in camps will even­tu­al­ly re­turn.

CMTT saw the state­ments as seek­ing to "...dis­cred­it the British gov­ern­ment's re­cent ad­vi­so­ry to down­grade the ter­ror threat com­ing from T&T, and brain­wash T&T's pop­u­la­tion in­to be­liev­ing Mus­lims are ca­pa­ble of com­mit­ting hor­rif­ic, heinous ter­ror­ist crimes against the rest of the pop­u­la­tion es­pe­cial­ly the busi­ness sec­tor.

"The colonel's con­tra­dict­ed Ju­ly 2018 state­ments by Saeed Ir­fan, State De­part­ment Di­rec­tor of Counter-Ter­ror­ism in Wash­ing­ton who called for T&T's Gov­ern­ment to al­low our cit­i­zens to re­turn and as­sist their rein­te­gra­tion."

Mo­hammed said the colonel's com­ments on the Car­ni­val plot were "ab­surd" since no one was charged. "What's her agen­da rais­ing this is­sue with the busi­ness cham­ber and the rest of T&T? I'm hap­py she saw those ar­rest­ed dur­ing the Car­ni­val week­end as 'boy scouts'. This sup­ports our po­si­tion it was a hoax."

THE LIST

•Faranah Khan (Umm Ab­dur­rah­maa)—plus two boys age ten and five; girl, one year.

• Saw­dah Khan (Umm Suhailah)—plus girl age six; boys, ages four and two.

•Rafi­ah Khan (Umm Hafs)—plus boy and girl, ages not stat­ed.

•Afiesha Mo­hammed (Umm Ruqayyah)—plus boys 12, 11, three and one; and girl, nine.

•Oth­er chil­dren: ap­prox­i­mate­ly five girls ages one to sev­en plus boys, ages one to eight and nine.

• Gillian Ramirez, age 42.

•Hamzah Ab­dul Azia, age 30.

•Saadiyyah Baksh, age 27.

• Su­laiman Ab­dul Az­iz, age 34.

•Ama­di Al­i­mayu, age 32—plus three chil­dren. She left T&T preg­nant and her hus­band died there two years ago. Chil­dren—Nass­er de Mon­trichard (nine), Je­han de Mon­trichard (five), Suhail de Mon­trichard (three, born in Syr­ia).

•Shar­i­fa Si­mon and daugh­ter.

•Im­ta­hal Ab­dal Karim and two chil­dren.

SOS for Team Nightin­gale to re­turn them

CMTT's le­gal ad­vis­ers feel the is­sue is a job for Gov­ern­ment's mul­ti-agency Team Nightin­gale con­sti­tut­ed in Au­gust 2018 by Young to deal with pos­si­ble repa­tri­a­tion/rein­te­gra­tion of cit­i­zens held in refugee/de­ten­tion camps in Syr­ia and Iraq.

The team was an­nounced in the is­sue of Perkins sons' repa­tri­a­tion from Syr­ia's Roj refugee camp.

Then, Gov­ern­ment said the team did a com­plex, de­tailed in­ves­ti­ga­tion/ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cise to as­cer­tain the facts. That process runs par­al­lel with de­vel­op­ing a process and pro­ce­dure for repa­tri­a­tion and rein­te­gra­tion which would in­clude as­sess­ing the sta­tus of re­turn­ing na­tion­als.

Up­on the re­turn of any mi­nors/adult na­tion­als from Isis in Iraq and Syr­ia bat­tle­fronts the team's var­i­ous el­e­ments have dif­fer­ent roles to play, in­clud­ing, as­sess­ing the best en­vi­ron­ment for mi­nors who may have ex­pe­ri­enced the trau­ma and ill ef­fects of be­ing in, or around, war zones and bat­tle­fronts. Any re­turnees will be as­sessed by ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­i­ties up­on re­turn.

But se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts said the Gov­ern­ment must en­sure a de­rad­i­cal­i­sa­tion plan to as­sist peo­ple brought to T&T.

They said even if peo­ple said "they just went with their hus­bands", it didn't mean they weren't rad­i­calised. They said de­rad­i­cal­i­sa­tion pro­grammes and manda­to­ry coun­selling will be im­por­tant for T&T ahead and is par­tic­u­lar­ly nec­es­sary since the An­ti Ter­ror­ism law's strength is in ar­rest, but con­vic­tion rates aren't good.

Red Cross li­ais­ing with Rio claro imam on rel­a­tives in Iraq

Pe­ter Mau­r­er In­ter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee for the Red Cross (ICRC) head is quot­ed in an April Agence France-Presse re­port say­ing hun­dreds of "chil­dren of Isis" should be re­unit­ed with fam­i­lies and repa­tri­at­ed to coun­tries of ori­gin.

He was re­fer­ring to peo­ple at the al Hol camp. He said ICRC's pri­or­i­ty was to bring chil­dren back to their coun­try of ori­gin. Af­ter the iden­ti­ties of chil­dren are ver­i­fied, ICRC no­ti­fies gov­ern­ments in the chil­dren's coun­try of ori­gin to de­ter­mine whether there are rel­a­tives will­ing to take mi­nors.

Rio Claro imam Naz­im Mo­hammed told Guardian Me­dia last Fri­day the Red Cross has been in touch with him a lot re­gard­ing his daugh­ter, three grand­daugh­ters and their own sev­en chil­dren de­tained in Iraq. The adult women who left T&T in 2015 are serv­ing 20-year sen­tences each for sus­pect­ed Isis links.

Mo­hammed said the Red Cross vis­it­ed him up to re­cent­ly, but he "had no word" how the women were do­ing.

He said he re­ceived no re­sponse to his calls for Gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance to bring his rel­a­tives home. Mo­hammed was in­volved in the 1990 failed coup at­tempt.

Bad con­di­tions at al Hol (use MAP)

Last week, US' Na­tion­al Pub­lic Ra­dio (NPR) re­port­ed that UN hu­man rights high com­mis­sion­er Michelle Bachelet at a Hu­man Rights Coun­cil said the al-Hol camp—where some 11,000 peo­ple be­lieved to be the wives and chil­dren of for­eign Isis fight­ers are liv­ing—has "deeply sub­stan­dard con­di­tions".

She's quot­ed say­ing for­eign fam­i­ly mem­bers "should be repa­tri­at­ed un­less they're to be pros­e­cut­ed for crimes”.

Bachelet said sus­pect­ed Isis fight­ers must ei­ther be tried or let go and their fam­i­lies can­not be de­tained in­def­i­nite­ly. The UN es­ti­mat­ed 55,000 sus­pect­ed Isis fight­ers and fam­i­ly mem­bers were de­tained since Isis was top­pled.

Re­ports said there was a slight re­duc­tion in ini­tial camp fig­ures and an in­crease in the num­ber of third-coun­try na­tion­als repa­tri­at­ed by their coun­tries of ori­gin, in­clud­ing chil­dren.

NPR this month de­scribed an in­crease in the num­ber of cas­es of acute di­ar­rhoea in the camp—1,071, plus re­port­ed short­ages of safe drink­ing wa­ter and lack of a blood bank at the three field hos­pi­tals.