RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Amid re­cent calls from Hu­man Rights Watch and the Unit­ed Na­tions to ex­pe­dite the repa­tri­a­tion of T&T na­tion­als from Syr­ia, Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says he will re­quest a re­port from the Nizam Mo­hammed-led Repa­tri­a­tion Com­mit­tee on the gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts.

Speak­ing to re­porters at the Ma­coon Street Masjid in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Young said repa­tri­a­tion is an on­go­ing process in­volv­ing the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs. There are 90 na­tion­als, in­clud­ing 56 chil­dren, strand­ed in north­east Syr­i­an camps in dire con­di­tions.

Asked whether he in­tends to ex­pe­dite repa­tri­a­tion, Young said, “It is un­der my tenure that we set up Team Nightin­gale when I was Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, recog­nis­ing the need for an in­fra­struc­ture to re­ceive cit­i­zens when they re­turn.”

He not­ed, how­ev­er, that repa­tri­a­tion is not an easy process.

“There are a lot of com­plex­i­ties. We have a com­mit­tee un­der Mr Nizam (Mo­hammed) look­ing at these mat­ters. I will ask for a re­port from the new Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs to de­ter­mine where we are in the process,” Young said.

Not­ing that the ver­i­fi­ca­tion process is dif­fi­cult, he added, “Our cit­i­zens are in con­flict zones. They are lit­er­al­ly in war zones. Get­ting the in­for­ma­tion is not as sim­ple as we would like. We have asked for­eign gov­ern­ments for as­sis­tance. It is some­thing I am very con­scious of, and we will con­tin­ue fo­cus­ing on it.”

Asked to com­ment on claims that the Repa­tri­a­tion Com­mit­tee is un­der-re­sourced, Young said, “Every­one may say they want more re­sources. That com­mit­tee was set up for a spe­cif­ic rea­son—to en­gage and gath­er the in­for­ma­tion. That is what I am hop­ing is go­ing on.”

On the de­por­ta­tion of na­tion­als from the Unit­ed States, Young said the process has been on­go­ing for years.

“When I was Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, we re­ceived re­ports of de­por­ta­tions to T&T. At my first Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil meet­ing as Prime Min­is­ter that was one of the ar­eas of pri­or­i­ty. I was sat­is­fied with the arrange­ments be­ing made.

“We have a process. We are told in ad­vance by the US gov­ern­ment. They pro­vide us with in­for­ma­tion on what these peo­ple were charged with. That goes in­to our in­tel­li­gence sys­tem, such as the po­lice ser­vice,” he ex­plained.

How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar took Young to task over his re­sponse to repa­tri­a­tion.

“They (na­tion­als) have been wait­ing for ten years. Isn’t that true? What you have not done in ten years, you are now go­ing to do?” she asked.

“I raised that is­sue dur­ing Eid cel­e­bra­tions in Ch­agua­nas last year. Af­ter I raised it, the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced they set up a com­mit­tee. Every is­sue that aris­es, they want to set up a com­mit­tee.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was not sat­is­fied with Young’s re­sponse, “It is women and chil­dren we are speak­ing about. I am not com­fort­able with that re­sponse. Ten years you have been there, man, and every­thing must wait for an­oth­er five? No!”

The na­tion­als have been kept in camps and de­ten­tion cen­tres due to al­leged as­so­ci­a­tions with the Is­lam­ic State (ISIS).

​In March 2024, the Gov­ern­ment es­tab­lished a three-mem­ber repa­tri­a­tion com­mit­tee com­pris­ing for­mer Speak­er of the House Nizam Mo­hammed, for­mer diplo­mat Patrick Ed­wards, and Kwe­si At­i­ba to work along­side the in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al Task Force Nightin­gale, formed in 2018, to fa­cil­i­tate the re­turn of these na­tion­als. ​

How­ev­er, Mo­hammed re­port­ed that the com­mit­tee had been side­lined and lacked the au­thor­i­ty to pro­ceed ef­fec­tive­ly. ​

Hu­man Rights Watch and UN ex­perts have con­tin­ued to urge T&T to ex­pe­dite the repa­tri­a­tion process, em­pha­sis­ing the dire con­di­tions in the Syr­i­an camps and the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the de­tained chil­dren.