Attorney Nafeesa Mohammed is appealing to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to use her upcoming United Nations visit to speak with Syrian leaders and other authorities to help repatriate the 97 T&T women and children who have been in Middle Eastern refugee camps since 2019.
“Prime Minister, here you have an opportunity to change the course of these children’s lives,” Mohammed appealed in a statement yesterday on behalf of relatives of the 97 people.
Persad-Bissessar is expected to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on September 24 and 25 and deliver an address.
Among the planned engagements on the sidelines, the Government has asked Venezuela to facilitate bilateral talks between the Prime Minister and Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez, who is also attending the UNGA. The talks are intended to expand a “new era” of heightened co-operation in priority areas, following a recent meeting between the T&T and Venezuelan foreign affairs ministers.
Mohammed has been lobbying for the return of the 72 children and 25 women from the Middle Eastern refugee camps since 2019. They are surviving relatives of T&T nationals who travelled to conflict zones in the Middle East between 2012 and 2015 and joined the Islamic State terrorist group.
ISIS was defeated between 2018 and 2019, after which survivors were placed in refugee camps in Syria and Iraq. Since then, the US Central Command has urged countries to repatriate their nationals.
The PNM had started action towards repatriating the group, while the UNC promised during the election campaign to bring them home.
Attorney General John Jeremie, who heads the team appointed to handle the issue, did not respond to Guardian Media queries yesterday on the status of the matter.
However, Mohammed said: “Honourable Prime Minister, as you represent T&T at the United Nations General Assembly, we, the relatives of T&T women and children stranded in Syria, are asking you to carry their voices with you.”
“These children have waited, growing up surrounded by uncertainty and hardship, separated from relatives in T&T who continue awaiting the day they can finally hug them.”
Saying the children are innocent, Mohammed added: “They didn’t choose the decisions of the adults around them or where they were taken or where they were born. Yet they’ve spent some of the most important years of their childhood paying the price.”
“Prime Minister, T&T can change what happens next. Authorities responsible for these women and children have indicated their willingness for foreign nationals to return to their countries. What’s needed from our Government is the necessary engagement and documentation to facilitate their journey home.”
“What these children need is for someone with the power to open that door. At the United Nations General Assembly, you’ll stand among leaders and representatives of governments who can help make their return possible.
“We respectfully ask you to use that access: speak directly with the relevant representatives of Syria and other authorities involved, ask what T&T must do. Establish the necessary diplomatic contacts. Let us finally begin moving from discussing to doing.”
Mohammed added: “We’re not asking you to erase the past, simply asking you to help give these innocent children a future at home, with their families, as T&T citizens. Please use this moment at the UNGA… bring our children home.”
“Give them the chance to become doctors, teachers, entrepreneurs, tradespeople, mothers, fathers and productive T&T citizens—the chance to become known for what they become, not for where they spent their childhood.
“Years from now, these children should be able to look back and know that when T&T finally had an opportunity to reach them, their country didn’t turn away.”
