T&T nationals in Syria and Iraq are pleading with the Government to help them return home after two children were forcibly taken away by Iraqi authorities.
The concerns were raised by the international organisation Human Rights Watch, which has been working extensively with nationals in Iraq and Syria.
A Human Rights Watch press statement said that on May 2, Iraqi prison authorities forcibly removed two Trinidadian brothers, aged 13 and 15, from their mother’s cell in Rusafa women’s prison in Baghdad and transferred them to a cell with other youths.
Four Trinidadian women have been held along with their seven children, ages approximately seven to 15, for nearly seven years at the prison.
The organisation in charge of returning nationals home, the Repatriation Committee, admits that it has been left in the dark regarding T&T nationals in Syria and Iraq.
Committee head Nizam Mohammed said that things had been moving slowly.
Mohammed stated, “The prime minister said that Team Nightingale is in charge of the whole operation, so there’s a place addressing your questions.”
He explained that the committee was trying their best, however, they were now reaching out to Team Nightingale to continue working on bringing the T&T nationals in Syria and Iraq home.
The Repatriation Committee was tasked with bringing home citizens who left T&T around 2015 to join the terrorist organisation Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Over 100 T&T nationals are detained in camps and prisons in Syria and Iraq, mostly women and children.
Guardian Media was given an audio recording from Human Rights Watch of the woman whose children were placed in another cell.
She said that she feared that the two boys would be transferred to another prison and her youngest son suffered from asthma, anaemia, and malnutrition.
“I will send you some pictures of this prison and my cell, this little cell that I am in with my children. They took my son from me. They said he’s too big to remain in this small cell with me, and they put him in a cell with about ten boys. Yes, it’s close to me, it’s not normal, it’s very frustrating,” she said.
“We are behind walls and bars, with lock and key, with no education for our children, nothing, and it’s very frustrating. We are going on our seventh year in prison, our children are growing up here.”
Speaking to Guardian Media, Advocacy Director of the Children’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, Jo Becker, said her organisation had been in touch with T&T nationals in Iraq and Syria.
The group released their Human Rights Watch report in T&T last year, calling on the Government to return their nationals.
Human Rights Watch also said in the statement that Iraqi authorities were holding an estimated 100 children with their mothers at Rusafa prison. Many of the women are foreign nationals who have been charged with or convicted of terrorism-related offences.
They stated that the imprisoned women said that they were willing for their children to be returned to T&T without them.
They said the Red Cross had visited them and that they communicated with the repatriation committee established by Trinidadian Prime Minister Keith Rowley in March 2023 but have had no response from the Government regarding their or their children’s situation.
“We had requested the chance to have a meeting online with the repatriation committee, and they indicated initial interest and willingness, but unfortunately, due to a variety of circumstances, we weren’t able to have that meeting,” Becker noted.
“A year ago, we were very encouraged when Prime Minister Keith Rowley created the repatriation committee and expressed a commitment to repatriate all of the Trinidadian nationals that have been held in the region.”
She said, “We thought that this was a really promising sign, but to be honest, it’s now a year later, and we see no movement, which is very disappointing, and it’s just another year of disappointment and heartache for Trinidad and Tobago nationals detained.”
Yesterday, the United States repatriated 11 US citizens from northeast Syria, including five minors they resettled in the United States and the nine-year-old non-US citizen sibling of one of the US citizen minors. It was the largest single repatriation of U.S. citizens from northeast Syria to date.
Approximately 30,000 individuals from more than 60 countries outside Syria remain in the al-Hol and Roj displaced persons camps, the majority of whom are children.
As of February 2023, a Human Rights Watch report documented the unlawful detention of Trinidadian nationals in life-threatening conditions in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria.
Since 2019, at least 39 countries have repatriated well over 8,000 of their nationals from the region. T&T has repatriated none of its nationals during that time.