Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

As Mus­lims in T&T be­gin wel­com­ing the holy month of Ra­madan, fam­i­lies of de­tained cit­i­zens in Syr­i­an refugee camps are call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to up­hold promis­es she made be­fore last year’s Gen­er­al Elec­tions to bring their rel­a­tives home - es­pe­cial­ly fol­low­ing a re­cent Hu­man Rights Watch (HRW) re­port stat­ing that those in the camps are in dan­ger.

This fol­lowed an HRW ar­ti­cle last Thurs­day call­ing for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to act on the mat­ter. The ar­ti­cle was head­lined “Trinida­di­an na­tion­als face es­ca­la­tion of abuse in Syr­i­an camps - con­di­tions wors­en as TT Gov­ern­ment de­lays repa­tri­a­tions.”

A spokesper­son for the de­tained cit­i­zens, Ra­heema Khan, sub­se­quent­ly ques­tioned whether the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Gov­ern­ment’s In­ter-Min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee formed in Ju­ly 2025 has made any re­quests from rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties in Syr­ia for the repa­tri­a­tion of the 72 T&T chil­dren and 25 women de­tained in the camps.

Yes­ter­day, Khan told Guardian Me­dia, “Ra­madan has start­ed. We re­al­ly thought this would be the year we would be spend­ing Eid-ul-Fitr to­geth­er. The Prime Min­is­ter promised to bring our fam­i­lies home once she was elect­ed. When their par­ty won, we thought she would keep her promise.”

Repa­tri­a­tion has been an is­sue since 2018. In 2017, gov­ern­ment re­vealed that 130 T&T na­tion­als went to Mid­dle East con­flict zones over 2012-2015 and joined the ISIS ter­ror­ist group. Fol­low­ing ISIS’s 2018 de­feat, sur­vivors of the na­tion­als were de­tained in refugee camps. Fam­i­lies of the women and chil­dren have been seek­ing their repa­tri­a­tion since then.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment was work­ing on the is­sue, in­clud­ing es­tab­lish­ing a team un­der for­mer house speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed to liase with fam­i­lies. The UNC, in Op­po­si­tion, had promised to re­turn the na­tion­als. Af­ter the UNC won elec­tions, the in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al team was set up, head­ed by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and Land/Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein, to deal with the is­sue.

The US Cen­tral Com­mand (CENT­COM), at a Unit­ed Na­tions con­fer­ence last Sep­tem­ber, urged coun­tries to re­dou­ble ef­forts to repa­tri­ate their cit­i­zens from the camps. This was to re­duce the op­por­tu­ni­ty for rad­i­calised in­flu­ences, to safe­guard the vul­ner­a­ble and de­ny ISIS resur­gence. CENT­COM es­tab­lished a spe­cial joint repa­tri­a­tion unit in Syr­ia to co­or­di­nate peo­ple’s re­turn to their coun­tries.

There was no re­ply from Je­re­mie or Ho­sein to Wat­sApped ques­tions on the mat­ter.

But Khan asked whether the team had held meet­ings to dis­cuss repa­tri­a­tion.

“When the com­mit­tee was formed to ‘ex­pe­dite’ repa­tri­a­tion, we re­al­ly thought that by now, the women and chil­dren would’ve been home. I’m hop­ing this Gov­ern­ment doesn’t make fake promis­es to us like the last gov­ern­ment, who gave us the run-around for six years.”

The HRW ‘s re­port stat­ed that de­spite nu­mer­ous promis­es to repa­tri­ate na­tion­als, “T&T has on­ly ac­cept­ed back two boys in April 2025 ... most Trinida­di­an de­tainees are chil­dren .. Who nev­er chose to live un­der ISIS. Many were tak­en to Syr­ia by par­ents who sought to join ISIS or live in the ‘caliphate ... 30 or more were born in Syr­ia.”

Their fam­i­lies are al­so con­cerned, since over re­cent weeks they re­ceived mes­sages re­veal­ing es­ca­lat­ing abuse which the women and chil­dren face.

HWR’s ar­ti­cle stat­ed, “The lives of dozens of Trinida­di­an women and chil­dren are hang­ing in the bal­ance. T&T Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar should act im­me­di­ate­ly to bring the coun­try’s de­tained na­tion­als home.”

The ar­ti­cle de­tailed that women and chil­dren have been dragged out of their tents and beat­en and boys have been sep­a­rat­ed from their moth­ers and al­so faced abuse. The women stat­ed that fear is ram­pant among them as sol­diers “... raid their tents, de­stroy their be­long­ings and shoot care­less­ly in­to the air.”

The ar­ti­cle quot­ed a Trinida­di­an woman in the Al Roj camp. She stat­ed that as she was be­ing beat­en, sol­diers told her, “You will nev­er be free. You are garbage. You’ve failed your chil­dren. They are go­ing to die.”

Their fam­i­lies not­ed that the sit­u­a­tion in the camps has al­so be­come un­sta­ble since the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment has start­ed re­claim­ing North East Syr­ia from the Kurds, the group re­spon­si­ble for over­see­ing the Al Roj camp.

“With­in re­cent days, an­oth­er (Al Hol) camp was emp­tied and closed down. What would be­come of the women and chil­dren if they have nowhere to go?”