Senior Reporter
jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt
Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday called on the Government to repatriate the scores of T&T women and children stranded in refugee camps and prisons in Syria since the collapse of the Islamic State (ISIS).
Persad-Bissessar, who attended Eid celebrations at the Nur-e-Islam Mosque in El Socorro, San Juan, said: “I have very, very serious concerns for the 72 children, Trinidad and Tobago children, who are stranded in Syria. I have called repeatedly for the Government to bring back the 72 children and I think about 30-something women.”
In January, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said efforts to repatriate T&T nationals from Syria are ongoing. A three-man repatriation committee headed by former House Speaker Nizam Mohammed was appointed by Rowley to advise and develop legislative and policy frameworks for the repatriation of nationals in the conflict zone.
In an immediate response to the Opposition Leader, Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Dr Amery Browne said work continues to repatriate nationals in Syria but it’s not a matter that can be treated overnight, as there is a national security element to consider.
“The work has continued, and the Ministry of National Security will be able to provide you with an update,” Browne said.
Persad-Bissessar said the repatriation committee was established last year, only after she raised concerns at an Iftar celebration but to date, nothing more has happened.
“Not one child, not one woman, has been brought back. I call on the Government again to please bring home our women and children from Syria. That is a serious matter,” she said.
Earlier this year, the head of the Internal Displaced Persons (IDP) and Refugee Office for the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, Dr Sheikhmus Ahmed, appealed to the T&T Government to communicate with them about the repatriation of nationals, including 20 children, who are detained in poor living conditions in the Al-Hol and Roj refugee camps.
Ahmed said the organisation reached out to countries whose nationals were arrested and detained for illegally entering northeast Syria to join ISIS.
“We call for all international communities to come to take their nationals from northeast Syria. And anyone or any country who wants to take their nationals from Northeast Syria, they can communicate with us,” Ahmed urged.