National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds and former House Speaker Nizam Mohammed are expected to meet with relatives of T&T nationals detained in Syria and Iraq. There are more than 105 T&T nationals, including 56 children, in detention centres and refugee camps in Iraq and Syria.
A committee headed by Mohammed that includes Islamic scholar Kwesi Atiba and retired diplomat Patrick Edwards was appointed by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to act as a liaison between the Muslim community and the government.
The team met two weeks ago with Prime Minister Rowley, Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Dr Amery Brown and National Security Minister, Fitzgerald Hinds to discuss the way forward.
Mohammed and Hinds are opening and commissioning a San Fernando office today.
“We are having a meeting with the relatives of these people who are abroad in San Fernando,” Mohammed told Guardian Media. “We are commissioning the San Fernando office. We had to establish two offices in Port-of-Spain and San Fernando to continue our work, so tomorrow (today) we will be doing the San Fernando office and we expect that the Ministry of National Security will send out an invitation to the media to come.”
He added: “We are anticipating over 50 relatives will be in attendance at the office.”
Responding to reports that Chaguanas West MP Dinesh Rambally will be travelling to Syria on a fact-finding mission, Mohammed said: “Nothing that we are hearing is affecting the work of the committee. We are having our work done at a governmental and diplomatic level in Trinidad and Tobago. Everything we are doing is at an official capacity at the state level and I don’t know about any private citizen arrangements to go into a war-torn country.
“So far quite a large number of the relatives have come forward. They feel it is the only state that could give them any meaningful assistance.”
The meeting is expected to start at 4.30 pm 9 Court Street, San Fernando.