Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als who left the coun­try to fight for the Is­lam­ic State of Iraq and Syr­ia (ISIS) are re­port­ed­ly at­tempt­ing to re­turn home amid es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence in war-torn Syr­ia and Iraq, rais­ing ur­gent le­gal, se­cu­ri­ty and hu­man­i­tar­i­an con­cerns, ac­cord­ing to at­tor­ney CJ Williams and rel­a­tives of those de­tained.

Williams said the Gov­ern­ment must act swift­ly, us­ing es­tab­lished le­gal chan­nels through the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice and the Min­istry of De­fence to man­age the sit­u­a­tion with­out re­sort­ing to cost­ly lit­i­ga­tion.

“These are Trinida­di­an na­tion­als in Syr­ia,” Williams said. “Tem­po­rary trav­el doc­u­ments should be pro­vid­ed. If they are Trinida­di­ans and they land here, good. If they’re not, we just de­port them back. It’s quite as sim­ple as that.”

He de­scribed this as the most re­al­is­tic so­lu­tion at this stage, em­pha­sis­ing that co­op­er­a­tion from for­eign au­thor­i­ties would be es­sen­tial. “If their na­tion­als are not sent, they must agree to help,” he said.

The at­tor­ney warned that a mea­sured, risk-based ap­proach is nec­es­sary. “The longer this Trinida­di­an prob­lem stays un­re­solved in the Mid­dle East, what is the glob­al cost for se­cur­ing our na­tion­als there?” he asked, high­light­ing po­ten­tial se­cu­ri­ty threats if ac­tion is de­layed.

Rahi­ma Khan, a rel­a­tive of Trinida­di­an na­tion­als de­tained in north­east Syr­ia, said con­di­tions for women and chil­dren in the camps have de­te­ri­o­rat­ed sharply amid on­go­ing in­sta­bil­i­ty. Ac­cord­ing to Khan, the Syr­i­an De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Forces (SDF), who guard the camps, have al­leged­ly beat­en women and chil­dren, de­stroyed tents and threat­ened to con­script old­er boys to fight on the front lines.

“The women are not sleep­ing at night. They are afraid of what will hap­pen to them and their chil­dren,” Khan said.

She re­layed re­ports that one woman was al­leged­ly dragged from her tent, as­sault­ed and left with both legs frac­tured, while oth­er de­tainees were ha­rassed and left ex­posed to the cold for hours at night.

Fam­i­lies in T&T say they have been seek­ing repa­tri­a­tion for years and that op­por­tu­ni­ties to safe­ly bring women and chil­dren home have been missed.

“A few months ago, US Cen­tral Com­mand told us they could get them out once they re­ceived ap­proval from the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Noth­ing has hap­pened,” Khan said.

“This is more than a hu­man rights is­sue,” she added. “We could be deal­ing with the loss of Trinida­di­an lives. These chil­dren could be killed. These women could be killed.”

Khan called on the Prime Min­is­ter to ho­n­our pre­vi­ous com­mit­ments to bring de­tainees home. “Please fast-for­ward this. It’s a pri­or­i­ty. Bring these women and chil­dren home be­fore some­body los­es their life over there,” she said.

Be­tween 2013 and 2016, more than 100 cit­i­zens from T&T trav­elled to con­flict zones in Syr­ia and Iraq to join ISIS, in­clud­ing men, women and chil­dren. Many re­port­ed­ly came from close-knit com­mu­ni­ties such as Rio Claro, En­ter­prise and Cara­po, and were in­flu­enced by lo­cal net­works pro­mot­ing ex­trem­ist ide­ol­o­gy.

Fol­low­ing the col­lapse of ISIS-held ter­ri­to­ry be­tween 2018 and 2019, US-backed Syr­i­an De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Forces de­tained hun­dreds of for­eign fight­ers and their fam­i­lies. An es­ti­mat­ed 90 to 100 T&T na­tion­als re­main in cus­tody in north­east Syr­ia and Iraq, many liv­ing in harsh camp con­di­tions at fa­cil­i­ties such as al-Hol and Roj. Women and chil­dren, some born in Syr­ia, have re­mained in the camps for years with­out for­mal ju­di­cial pro­ceed­ings.

Re­cent in­sta­bil­i­ty has re­port­ed­ly led to breach­es at some de­ten­tion fa­cil­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly male pris­ons, rais­ing con­cerns that some for­eign fight­ers may have es­caped and could at­tempt to re­turn with­out mon­i­tor­ing.

Lim­it­ed repa­tri­a­tion ef­forts have tak­en place. In April 2025, two Trinida­di­an chil­dren were re­turned home—the first such repa­tri­a­tion since 2019—but dozens of na­tion­als re­main over­seas. Hu­man rights ad­vo­cates have crit­i­cised the pace of gov­ern­ment ac­tion, urg­ing ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion to se­cure the safe re­turn of chil­dren and oth­er non-com­bat­ants.

The Gov­ern­ment faces a com­plex chal­lenge: man­ag­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty risks while meet­ing its hu­man rights oblig­a­tions. Sev­er­al oth­er coun­tries have repa­tri­at­ed cit­i­zens from ISIS-linked camps while im­ple­ment­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and mon­i­tor­ing pro­grammes.

Williams urged a sys­tem­at­ic re­sponse.

“You should ask the Gov­ern­ment to con­firm the lo­ca­tion of these na­tion­als or whether they may al­ready be mak­ing their way back due to the fail­ure of the Gov­ern­ment to act in a struc­tured man­ner,” he said.

With fam­i­lies ex­press­ing grow­ing fear for the safe­ty of their rel­a­tives, both le­gal ex­perts and fam­i­ly mem­bers are call­ing for ur­gent ac­tion.

“This sit­u­a­tion can­not wait,” Khan said. “These women and chil­dren are trau­ma­tised, and their lives are at risk. Bring our rel­a­tives home be­fore it’s too late.”