SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter 12 mem­bers of Rio Claro Imam Naz­im Mo­hammed’s fam­i­ly went to the Is­lam­ic State to be­come ISIS fight­ers and were killed, the re­li­gious leader yes­ter­day made a pas­sion­ate plea to the T&T Gov­ern­ment to repa­tri­ate Tri­ni chil­dren liv­ing in de­plorable camps in Syr­ia.

Mo­hammed’s 12 rel­a­tives left Trinidad be­tween 2015 and 2018 to join the ex­trem­ist group and he has not re­ceived any word from them in years.

The 12 were part of a group of 19 men, women and chil­dren who en­tered Syr­ia and Iraq il­le­gal­ly as ji­hadists but were caught by se­cu­ri­ty forces.

Mo­hammed said yes­ter­day the dozen fam­i­ly mem­bers are feared dead. The re­main­ing sev­en have been im­pris­oned and liv­ing in camps.

Mo­hammed’s 58-year-old daugh­ter, Aneesa Mo­hammed-Wa­heed and her three daugh­ters Aidah, 23, Az­izah, 32, and Sabi­rah, 29, are each serv­ing 20-year sen­tences in Iraq for il­le­gal­ly en­ter­ing the coun­try.

His grand­daugh­ter Sumiyah, her hus­band Akeil and their 14-year-old son, Samir, are in camps in Syr­ia. Sumiyah, Akeil and Samir have been de­tained there for “six or sev­en years now. They have them as de­tainees.”

He said the 19 fam­i­ly mem­bers went to the war-torn coun­tries on their own. In­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the sev­en has been lim­it­ed, Mo­hammed said.

This has been wor­ry­ing Mo­hammed to no end.

At 83, Mo­hammed said he was los­ing hope, say­ing the repa­tri­a­tion process for Samir and all the oth­er T&T chil­dren in Syr­ia was tak­ing too long.

“Yes, it’s tak­ing a long while but I don’t know the rea­son why,” said Mo­hammed, who heads the Masjid Umar Ibn Khat­tab Ja­maat in Boos Vil­lage, Rio Claro.

Mo­hammed agreed with Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly that the Gov­ern­ment’s slow pace in ad­dress­ing the repa­tri­a­tion of Trinida­di­an chil­dren de­tained in Syr­ia camps has been fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by the oust­ing of Pres­i­dent Bashar al-As­sad in Syr­ia.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, Ram­bal­ly said this de­vel­op­ment adds an alarm­ing lay­er of in­sta­bil­i­ty to an al­ready dire hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis.

Last year, the Hu­man Rights Watch stat­ed that at least 90 T&T na­tion­als, with 56 chil­dren among them, have been un­law­ful­ly de­tained in life-threat­en­ing con­di­tions as ISIS sus­pects and fam­i­ly mem­bers in north­east Syr­ia. The T&T Gov­ern­ment, they said, had tak­en al­most no ac­tion to help them re­turn ,even as coun­tries in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States and Bar­ba­dos repa­tri­at­ed their na­tion­als.

Dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Mo­hammed said the fam­i­lies of these chil­dren are suf­fer­ing and are pray­ing for them to re­turn home safe­ly.

He said these chil­dren found them­selves in a place they should not have been, due to no fault of their own.

Some were fooled by their par­ents.

Many left Trinidad un­aware they were be­ing tak­en to Syr­ia and Iraq, he said, adding the chil­dren should not be pay­ing the price for their par­ents’ bad judge­ment or poor de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

“At least the Gov­ern­ment should con­sid­er that ... that they are our cit­i­zens.”

He said out­siders have been com­ing to our shores liv­ing hap­py and com­fort­ably, while our chil­dren are im­pris­oned in Syr­i­an camps and are be­ing ill-treat­ed.

“It’s not right,” Mo­hammed said.

Mo­hammed said he would not cast blame on the Gov­ern­ment for the chil­dren be­ing in Syr­ia.

“The Gov­ern­ment could al­ways say they did not send them there.”

Hu­man Rights Watch stat­ed that health­care, clean wa­ter, shel­ter, ed­u­ca­tion and recre­ation for chil­dren are gross­ly in­ad­e­quate, while moth­ers had to hide their chil­dren in their tents to pro­tect them from sex­u­al preda­tors and abu­sive camp guards. Some chil­dren have drowned in sew­er pits, died in tent fires and been hit and killed by wa­ter trucks. Hun­dreds al­so died from treat­able ill­ness­es.

In Jan­u­ary, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said no T&T na­tion­al in Syr­ia had been repa­tri­at­ed to date, giv­ing the as­sur­ance that ef­forts to do so are on­go­ing.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne al­so stat­ed that while the is­sue of repa­tri­a­tion has been en­gag­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s at­ten­tion, it’s not a mat­ter that can be treat­ed overnight, as there is a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty el­e­ment to con­sid­er.

Last March, Row­ley es­tab­lished a three-man repa­tri­a­tion com­mit­tee head­ed by Nizam Mo­hammed to ad­vise and de­vel­op a leg­isla­tive and pol­i­cy frame­work to fa­cil­i­tate and ex­e­cute the repa­tri­a­tion of na­tion­als in the con­flict zone.