We asked govts to come for their citizens

DID Iraq and Syria ever communicate with the Government about repatriating TT nationals – women and children – caught in ISIS battlefields?

In a brief Whatsapp exchange, the protocol officer of the judicial media centre of the Iraq Supreme Court revealed that, in June last year, the TT government might have been notified about approximately 44 children under 16 and 30 mothers in Iraq and Syria.

Newsday asked about the number of TT women and children there, whether in detention centres, refugee camps or in jail.

Giving his name only as Saif, the protocol officer replied in Arabic. When translated, his message read, “All governments of countries where ISIS fighters came from have been contacted about their citizens.”

National Security Minister Stuart Young said on Wednesday that a government multi-agency team, Team Nightingale, was working to assess the need to repatriate children and their mothers from in Syria and Iraq.

Given Saif’s disclosure, Newsday sent messages to Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi and Young, but there was no response.

One recent capture of a TT national was reported on January 6 in the New York Times. He is Zaid Al Hamid.

After she was arrested as an ISIS fighter, former Chaguanas Borough beauty contestant Gailon Su, 45, and her son Su-lay, 16, were also captured.

On July 4, 2018, online news in the Defense Post said Iraq had asked the governments of 14 countries, through diplomatic channels, to help repatriate 833 children. The article did not name TT, but said, “Iraq has informed all of the countries that have citizens in its prisons. We have already spoken with embassies of Germany, Azerbaijan, Russia and other countries to take back their citizens.”

In July last year, the Ministry of National Security, under Edmund Dillon, had established a database of 135 TT nationals who left for Syria and Iraq to join ISIS.

Criminologist Dr Simon Cottee, who compiled a database of alleged ISIS fighters from TT and is publishing a study, has reportedly said the breakdown of nationals who had gone to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS comprised 40 per cent minors under 16, 30 per cent women and 30 per cent men.

On Friday, Nazim Mohammed, imam of the Boos Village mosque, told Newsday he breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Young on television referring to Mohammed’s granddaughters and their children, who were in detention centres in Iraq. They are Anisa Mohammed, 53 (serving 20 years in jail); and daughters Sabira, 29, Azizah, 32, and Aiydah Firdaws Waheed-Hasib, 23.

Mohammed said, “I’m most relieved to hear about Team Nightingale. I appeal to Mr Young and the government to help locate my grandchildren in Iraq. All the Iraqi authorities require is documentation and they will be released.”

Mohammed said he spoke with Sabira, who is in a detention centre, last week Thursday. “She said, ‘Papa, if the authorities here get proper documentation, they will send us back home. All countries have requested for their nationals to return.’”

Su’s daughter in Trinidad, Ebony Su, 23, told Newsday she was recently told her brother had been separated from her mother. She said, “A reporter named Rukmini Callimachi called me from the New York Times and she said that my brother was separated from my mother.”

Callimachi reported that Iraqi authorities could treat the 16-year-old Su-lay as a former ISIS fighter, which could result in his receiving a death sentence or jail term.