Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A call has been made for Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to raise the repa­tri­a­tion of 72 chil­dren and 25 women cur­rent­ly in Mid­dle East refugee camps with US Deputy Sec­re­tary of State Christo­pher Lan­dau on the side­lines at next week's Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

This call is be­ing made by at­tor­ney Nafeesa Mo­hammed on be­half of rel­a­tives of the women and chil­dren, who are the sur­vivors of T&T na­tion­als now housed at the camps. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 130 Tri­nis went to the Mid­dle East over 2012 to 2015 and be­came in­volved with the Is­lam­ic State ex­trem­ist mil­i­tant ter­ror­ist group. Af­ter ISIS was de­feat­ed in 2018-19, how­ev­er, sur­vivors were de­tained in refugee camps in North East­ern Syr­ia and Iraq, along with oth­ers.

In 2020, the US be­gan call­ing for coun­tries to repa­tri­ate their na­tion­als from the camps due to a con­cern of ris­ing rad­i­cal­i­sa­tion in the camps.

Ef­forts were on­go­ing by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment to lay the ground­work to bring peo­ple back, in­clud­ing check­ing the bona fides of re­turnees. A team head­ed by for­mer House Speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed was man­dat­ed to li­aise with fam­i­lies of those over­seas. There are cur­rent­ly three le­gal mat­ters in court con­cern­ing re­turn­ing per­sons.

While in Op­po­si­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had promised that a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress gov­ern­ment would take care of na­tion­als strand­ed out­side of T&T. The UNC Gov­ern­ment sub­se­quent­ly es­tab­lished an in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al team head­ed by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie to ex­pe­dite the repa­tri­a­tion. Je­re­mie and team vice chair­man Sad­dam Ho­sein didn't re­spond to Guardian Me­dia queries on the sta­tus of the is­sue and if it was com­plet­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said last week that dur­ing her up­com­ing US trip - to speak at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly - she would have side­line meet­ings with the US Deputy Sec­re­tary of State

Ad­dress­ing the on­go­ing repa­tri­a­tion is­sue with Guardian me­dia, Mo­hammed said, "As our Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter pre­pares to at­tend the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly meet­ing, we're re­spect­ful­ly ask­ing our very coura­geous and kind­heart­ed Prime Min­is­ter to please raise the is­sue of the repa­tri­a­tion of our dis­placed cit­i­zens from the refugee camps and oth­er fa­cil­i­ties over­seas.

"The 72 chil­dren and 25 women con­tin­ue lan­guish­ing in hor­ri­ble con­di­tions, liv­ing in rat in­fest­ed tents with very un­san­i­tary con­di­tions and un­pre­dictable weath­er con­di­tions. The in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised NGO Hu­man Rights Watch vis­it­ed T&T since March, 2023, and pre­sent­ed a re­port that high­light­ed the ex­tent of this hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis that af­fects so many of our cit­i­zens. The then gov­ern­ment promised to repa­tri­ate these cit­i­zens but failed mis­er­ably to ful­fil their promise."

She added, "Now that we have a Prime Min­is­ter who's not just a moth­er but a grand­moth­er, wife, sis­ter and a coura­geous woman leader who's been show­ing con­sid­er­able strength and fo­cus in her un­der­stand­ing of the shift­ing glob­al pol­i­tics in the re­gion and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, we're con­fi­dent she can re­solve

this is­sue as she promised to do.

"We urge you to seek im­me­di­ate as­sis­tance from the US Deputy Sec­re­tary of State dur­ing your side­line meet­ings, giv­en the crit­i­cal role of the US Mil­i­tary in the re­gion, to en­sure the suc­cess­ful repa­tri­a­tion of our cit­i­zens."

Mo­hammed said US sup­port is vi­tal to ful­fill­ing the com­mit­ment in a time­ly man­ner.

"In Au­gust 13th, 2020, the then top US gen­er­al over­see­ing mil­i­tary ef­forts across the Mid­dle East, Ma­rine Gen­er­al Ken­neth McKen­zie, had urged part­ner

na­tions to repa­tri­ate its cit­i­zens. In an ar­ti­cle pub­lished by Corey Dick­stein in Stars and Stripes, the CENT­COM Chief said the US mil­i­tary was pre­pared to re­turn those women and chil­dren to their home coun­tries," Mo­hammed said.

"In a 17th No­vem­ber, 2020, ar­ti­cle in the Mid­dle East Eye, the then co­or­di­na­tor for coun­tert­er­ror­ism with­in the State De­part­ment, Nathan Seales of­fered to repa­tri­ate for­eign na­tion­als be­ing held by Kur­dish forces in camps and pris­ons in north­east­ern Syr­ia."

Mo­hammed not­ed that on Sep­tem­ber 13th, 2022, AFP pub­lished that the Head of the US Armed Forces Cen­tral Com­mand, the then CENT­COM’S Gen­er­al Michael Kuril­la, en­cour­aged all coun­tries that have cit­i­zens there to

repa­tri­ate, re­ha­bil­i­tate and rein­te­grate camp res­i­dents."

Mo­hammed said Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly showed her will­ing­ness to have this mat­ter re­solved when the Cab­i­net agreed to the in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al team. She ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the team of AG Je­re­mie and vice chair­man Ho­sein will en­sure ap­pro­pri­ate con­sul­ta­tions are held with some crit­i­cal stake­hold­ers
so the Prime Min­is­ter will be briefed on time for her first sig­nif­i­cant over­seas meet­ing.