Sun­day’s top­pling of the regime of Syr­i­an pres­i­dent Bashar al-As­sad has once again drawn at­ten­tion to the plight of T&T na­tion­als strand­ed in refugee camps and pris­ons in Syr­ia and Iraq.

This is­sue of na­tion­als lan­guish­ing in refugee camps or pris­ons in the Mid­dle East has been on the Gov­ern­ment’s radar since Au­gust 2018, when then-Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Stu­art Young, es­tab­lished a Repa­tri­a­tion and Rein­te­gra­tion Com­mit­tee, al­so called ‘The Nightin­gale Com­mit­tee.’

The com­mit­tee was set up in re­sponse to re­quests made by, or on be­half of, peo­ple claim­ing to be T&T cit­i­zens seek­ing repa­tri­a­tion from con­flict or war zones.

The Nightin­gale Com­mit­tee, which com­prised a wide cross-sec­tion of pub­lic ser­vants from Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies, was re­spon­si­ble for de­vel­op­ing a pol­i­cy, a leg­isla­tive frame­work and op­er­a­tional re­quire­ments for the repa­tri­a­tion and rein­te­gra­tion of peo­ple from con­flict or war zones.

The Gov­ern­ment needs to as­cer­tain im­me­di­ate­ly from the Nightin­gale Com­mit­tee the sta­tus of its prepa­ra­tion of the pol­i­cy, leg­isla­tive frame­work and op­er­a­tional re­quire­ments for the repa­tri­a­tion of T&T cit­i­zens.

Even for­mer House Speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed, who heads a Repa­tri­a­tion Com­mit­tee set up last year, seemed to be in a wait-and-see mode when con­tact­ed on Tues­day on his team’s work.

In Feb­ru­ary 2023, in­ter­na­tion­al, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion Hu­man Rights Watch re­port­ed that over 90 T&T na­tion­als, in­clud­ing at least 56 chil­dren, were un­law­ful­ly de­tained in life-threat­en­ing con­di­tions as Is­lam­ic State (ISIS) sus­pects and fam­i­ly mem­bers in north­east Syr­ia, which is in ter­ri­to­ry con­trolled by Kur­dish forces, who have the sup­port of the US gov­ern­ment.

An­oth­er re­port from the or­gan­i­sa­tion, in May 2024, claimed four Trinida­di­an women were be­ing de­tained in pris­ons in Iraq along with their sev­en chil­dren, aged ap­prox­i­mate­ly sev­en to 15.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go has pub­licly promised that it would bring home its na­tion­als from Iraq and Syr­ia, but not a sin­gle Trinida­di­an has re­turned home in more than five years. These chil­dren, who are not re­spon­si­ble for any crime, should be in school in Trinidad and To­ba­go, not lan­guish­ing in an Iraqi prison,” said Jo Beck­er, chil­dren’s rights ad­vo­ca­cy di­rec­tor at Hu­man Rights Watch in a May 2024 state­ment.

It is to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able, if not dis­grace­ful, that this New York-based NGO seems to care more about T&T’s na­tion­als trapped in sit­u­a­tions out of their con­trol than their own gov­ern­ment.

There are le­git­i­mate se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns about the repa­tri­a­tion of over 100 na­tion­als from Iraq and Syr­ia, giv­en the like­li­hood that the men who chose to leave T&T and trav­el to those coun­tries would have been rad­i­calised.

But it would be pos­si­ble for Gov­ern­ment to de­cide that it would on­ly repa­tri­ate women and chil­dren, as many oth­er na­tions have done. Al­so, dozens of coun­tries have repa­tri­at­ed or al­lowed thou­sands of their na­tion­als to re­turn from these war-torn coun­tries. The coun­tries that have suc­cess­ful­ly repa­tri­at­ed na­tion­als in­clude Bar­ba­dos, Cana­da, the Unit­ed States and the Unit­ed King­dom.

Sure­ly, it would be pos­si­ble for tech­nocrats in Port-of-Spain to learn from coun­tries that have gone through the process of the repa­tri­a­tion. In ad­di­tion, the repa­tri­a­tion process must in­clude a com­pre­hen­sive, on-the-ground vet­ting of those in refugee camps or in prison.

The ques­tion must be asked of the Gov­ern­ment whether it is se­ri­ous about pro­tect­ing na­tion­als who get in­to trou­ble over­seas. The Gov­ern­ment’s in­ac­tion on this is­sue, up to now, does not re­flect well on it or the coun­try.

If it is se­ri­ous, it must take ac­tion im­me­di­ate­ly to en­sure most of these na­tion­als are re­turned home as soon as pos­si­ble.