Senior Reporter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt
Head of the Repatriation Committee, Nizam Mohammed, says efforts to return approximately 100 citizens from refugee camps in war-torn Syria and surrounding states are not yet ready, as they require more information on the persons involved.
Speaking to Guardian Media yesterday, Mohammed said the committee was, in fact, still setting up.
So far, its database has approximately 100 stranded nationals, with children accounting for almost half while the rest are women.
Mohammed said the committee had not received information about men who may be similarly affected.
Last month, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley appointed Mohammed, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives and Police Service Commission chairman, to head the Repatriation Committee, which was tasked with bringing home citizens who left T&T around 2015 to join the terrorist organisation Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The three-member committee also includes former Ambassador to Ethiopia and Uganda Patrick Edwards and Islamic leader Kwesi Atiba.
Yesterday, Mohammed said relatives of stranded nationals were cooperative and had provided the committee with much-needed information. He said the committee also established contacts with foreign governments.
“We expect we will gain some measure of success with getting nearer to those based in refugee camps and other places abroad,” Mohammed said.
He continued, “We have opened the office. We have done a considerable amount of work gathering information for our database. The office is not fully functional because we are still to get some office equipment, which would not affect us from moving forward.”
He admitted that it is a tricky situation getting the citizens back home.
Mohammed said some nationals are in No Man’s Land and refugee camps that are not controlled by any particular government but by autonomous authorities. This, he said, presents some difficulties, as there is no government to communicate with.
He said the committee has to gather more information before the actual repatriation requests begin, which includes direct locations. He said repatriations of this magnitude would also require international help.