It is now eight months since Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley committed to allowing 100 nationals at detention camps and jails in Syria back into T&T.
With no significant progress up to now, however, Human Rights Watch (HRW) activists are calling on him to make good on his promises.
In a letter on the longstanding issue, HRW’s Jo Becker and Letta Tayler said Rowley’s pledge to repatriate citizens with alleged ISIS ties trapped in Syria for the past four years was the right choice morally, legally, and strategically.
Tayler is an Associate Crisis and Conflict Director at HRW, while Becker is the Children’s Rights Advocacy Director.
In March, Rowley appointed a three-man committee led by former House Speaker Nizam Mohammed and including former ambassador Patrick Edwards and Islamic leader Kwesi Atiba to oversee the repatriations process.
Becker and Tayler said the Government had demonstrated its ability to repatriate nationals quickly recently, as when hostilities in Israel and Palestine escalated in October, the Ministry of Foreign and Caricom Affairs was able to help evacuate a student in Israel within 24 hours. They noted that the Government also assisted in evacuating nationals from Ukraine in 2022.
Becker and Tayler said most nationals in Syria were children who did not choose to go there and many were born there. They said during the last six months, Azerbaijan, Canada, Denmark, France, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Russia and Tajikistan had repatriated over 400 of their citizens from northeast Syria, while Iraq has taken about 1,300 home.
“Since 2019, at least 39 governments have repatriated well over 8,000 nationals from northeast Syria. Shamefully, Trinidad and Tobago is not among them.”
Becker and Tayler said when Rowley appointed the repatriation committee, families had hoped that their long wait for the return of their loved ones might soon be over. Instead, they told HRW that Government ministries and talk of first enacting repatriation legislation only stonewalled the committee’s efforts, while many countries repatriate without such laws.
Becker and Tayler said over 90 T&T nationals, including at least 21 women and 56 children, are detained in camps and prisons holding ISIS-linked suspects and family members in northeast Syria.
“Not one Trini has been charged in northeast Syria with any crime or even had access to a judge to challenge their detention. They are held in conditions so dire they may amount to torture, and face escalating risks of becoming victims of violence or susceptible to recruitment by ISIS.”
The HRW said it visits to northeast Syria found palpable despair among detainees. The Trinidadians interviewed in the camps and detention facilities just wanted to return home, even if they had to face justice. As winter approaches, conditions are getting worse, they noted.
“A family member in T&T told us recently that his daughter-in-law and her three children had not had running water or electricity for a week. Rain leaked into their tent, and its only dry area was where they slept.”
Becker and Tayler said Turkey had also resumed deadly airstrikes across its border into northeast Syria last month, damaging vital infrastructure, jeopardising humanitarian aid, and further compounding the life-threatening risks to detainees.
HRW research has found that many repatriated children are reintegrating successfully and are doing well in school. Therefore, it said detained T&T children should have the same opportunities.
Contacted on the issue, Mohammed told Guardian Media that the repatriation committee was continuing its work and there was nothing new to report. He said with events occurring in the Middle East recently, things had slowed down.
“We can only move as fast as the Government is moving. We are advising the Government,” Mohammed said.
Last May, Mohammed said the committee required more information on the people involved and was still setting up. He said they had a database of 100 stranded nationals, with children accounting for almost half while the rest are women, while there was no information about men. In terms of progress, he said the committee had established contacts with foreign governments. He lamented, however, that it would be a tricky situation getting the citizens back home, as some nationals are in no man’s land and refugee camps not controlled by autonomous authorities or any particular government.