Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

T&T na­tion­als strand­ed in camps in Syr­ia are grow­ing in­creas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed as months pass with­out clear ac­tion from a gov­ern­ment-ap­point­ed in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee tasked with fa­cil­i­tat­ing their re­turn.

Rahi­ma Khan, whose sis­ter and five chil­dren re­main in the camps, ex­pressed deep con­cern over the slow pace of repa­tri­a­tion ef­forts. She said that when the new gov­ern­ment took of­fice, it es­tab­lished an in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee, led by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, to ex­pe­dite the re­turn of na­tion­als. “I thought that things would move quick­ly,” Khan said. “I thought that these women and chil­dren would not have to spend an­oth­er win­ter in the camps.”

De­spite ini­tial op­ti­mism, six months have passed with­out any com­mu­ni­ca­tion or meet­ings with the com­mit­tee. “We don’t know what is tak­ing place. We haven’t even had a meet­ing with this new com­mit­tee,” she said, re­call­ing the frus­tra­tion of pre­vi­ous at­tempts un­der the for­mer gov­ern­ment, dur­ing which fam­i­lies faced re­peat­ed de­lays and mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion in le­gal pro­ceed­ings.

Khan out­lined plans her team had al­ready de­vel­oped to fa­cil­i­tate rein­te­gra­tion once the fam­i­lies re­turn.

“We came up with a civ­il con­tract agree­ment,” she said. “We dis­cussed rein­te­gra­tion, with civ­il so­ci­ety groups, NGOs, and Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions ready to help with med­ical care, coun­selling, and as­sess­ments. The chil­dren are of vary­ing ages, so their needs dif­fer, and as the years go by, we keep up­dat­ing our plans.”

She ex­plained the chal­lenge posed by old­er chil­dren who have aged out of the school­ing sys­tem.

“For those old­er kids, we’ll need skill train­ing, pri­vate lessons, and ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes to help them rein­te­grate. The younger ones can still be sent to school and should be able to rein­te­grate smooth­ly.”

Ac­cord­ing to Hu­man Rights Watch, more than 90 T&T na­tion­als re­main de­tained in camps in north­east Syr­ia, in­clud­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 21 women.

Among them, at least 56 are chil­dren, and 13 are males, in­clud­ing teenage boys, cur­rent­ly held in de­ten­tion cen­tres.

“It’s hard on them be­cause every month, friends leave the camps,” she said.

“There are or­gan­i­sa­tions as­sist­ing oth­ers to re­turn home quick­ly. We could do the same here, but we need the gov­ern­ment to ac­knowl­edge these are their cit­i­zens and to pro­vide a team to ac­com­pa­ny us for ver­i­fi­ca­tion and repa­tri­a­tion.”

She ex­pressed frus­tra­tion that the gov­ern­ment has not tak­en ad­van­tage of this avail­able sup­port. “These chil­dren are ask­ing why our gov­ern­ment isn’t us­ing that help, and I have no an­swer. It could be oth­er mat­ters are pri­ori­tised, but this is about chil­dren. We can’t keep de­lay­ing this,” Khan said.

Khan is urg­ing the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to push for a faster res­o­lu­tion, in­struct his lawyers to meet with the fam­i­lies’ le­gal team, and pri­ori­tise repa­tri­a­tion. “We don’t want to see this mat­ter stretched out for years like un­der the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment. We need ac­tion so we can bring these peo­ple home,” she said.

Shenanaz Mo­hammed, a rel­a­tive of those cur­rent­ly in the camps, stressed the ur­gent need for com­pas­sion and fair­ness in ad­dress­ing the is­sue.

Mo­hammed, ear­li­er this year, was able to get her two grand­chil­dren to re­turn. She said they are in­te­grat­ing very well.

“The chil­dren are now thriv­ing in school and set­tling in­to life back home. De­spite the hur­dles we faced bring­ing them from the UK—when the for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at­tempt­ed to block their re­turn by claim­ing they weren’t cit­i­zens—the gov­ern­ment has since grant­ed them full cit­i­zen­ship, for which I am deeply grate­ful,” she said.

Mo­hammed added, “So­cial­ly, they are flour­ish­ing, mak­ing friends, par­tic­i­pat­ing ful­ly in school, and ad­just­ing seam­less­ly in­to so­ci­ety. Re­mark­ably, they have done all this with­out pro­fes­sion­al in­ter­ven­tion, prov­ing just how re­silient and adapt­able they are.

She has five more grand­chil­dren still at the camp wait­ing to re­turn home.

“Our lit­tle ones over there, they are be­ing de­monised,” she said.

“While we have con­vict­ed crim­i­nals among us—pae­dophiles, rapists, you name the crime—they live freely in our so­ci­ety, and no one bats an eye­lid. Yet these in­no­cent chil­dren are be­ing de­nied a chance to come home. It’s not fair. Where is the hu­man­i­ty?”