Human Rights Watch demands Trinidad repatriate citizens in Syria suspected of links to IS

Human Rights Watch is calling on the government of Trinidad and Tobago to promptly bring home more than 90 of its people who are being detained in wartorn Syria on suspicion of being members of the Islamic State terror group.

More than half of them are children.

“The government of Trinidad and Tobago has taken almost no action to help them return, even as countries including the United States and Barbados repatriate their own nationals,” the rights group said Tuesday in a statement.

Human Rights Watch said there are more than 4,000 foreigners from 60 countries being held in Syria, which is “unsconscionable.” Among them are 56 Trinidadian children. Some of them told advocates they ended up in Syria after their parents lied to them.

Letta Tayler, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch, said during a press conference Tuesday that she has made several trips to camps and detention centers where Trinidadians and other IS-linked suspects and family members are being held in Syria. Conditions are increasingly dire, she said, noting that healthcare, clean water, shelter, and education and recreation for children are grossly inadequate.

Trinidad and Tobago needs to repatriate its citizens, she added, and reintegrate and rehabilitate those who are in need, and where appropriate prosecute those linked to serious crimes.

A twin-island republic in the eastern Caribbean with a population of about 1.3 million, Trinidad and Tobago has been known for years as recruiting ground for the Islamic State among its Muslim population. The government previously said that about 130 of its nationals left between 2013 and 2015 to join the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, also known as ISIS.

Those being held in Syria are being detained by U.S.backed, Kurdish-led regional forces, Human Rights Watch said, citing interviews with family members and advocates.

Most of the Trinidadians were rounded up in late 2018 and early 2019 by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces as it toppled the last remnant of IS’ self-declared caliphate in northeast Syria.

The detainees include an estimated 21 women, at least one of them a grandmother, and at least 56 children in Roj and al-Hol, two locked camps for families with alleged IS links. Forty-four of the children in the camps are ages 12 or younger and 15 are under age 6, family members told Human Rights Watch.

At least 33 children were born in Syria, including one 3-year-old who was born in al-Hol. In addition, at least 13 male Trinidadians, including at least one teenage boy, are held in other detention centers. At least six of them — the teenager, 17, and five men ages 18 to 20 — were taken to Syria by family members when they were children.

Human Rights Watch interviewed six Trinidadians held in the camps and prisons in 2019 and 2022, and seven family members, an attorney, and three advocates representing the detainees from

December 2022 to February 2023. In addition, the human-rights group reviewed court documents related to cases filed by the families seeking to compel the government to bring home their loved ones.

A 19-year-old Trinidadian, whose name is being withheld by Human Rights Watch to protect him, told the group that he ended up in the country after his dad told him he was going to a hotel in Egypt and would swim in a pool.

“I was 11 years old. I only knew the names of countries like Trinidad and America,” said the teen, who was among about 30 foreign youths — older teens and young men — detained 23 hours a day in a cell that was just big enough to fit their mattresses on the floor. The youths had only one toilet and shower, and stench permeated the cell, he said.

Other Trinidadians who went to Syria as adults said they wrongly thought they were going to a Muslim utopia, only to learn once they arrived that IS would not let them leave, Human Rights Watch said.

“This is a nightmare I cannot wake up from,” said a detained Trinidadian woman, adding that she was willing to serve prison time in Trinidad if she and her family were allowed to go home.

“As Muslims we wanted to experience the Islamic State like Christians want to visit Jerusalem,” said the woman, one of nine members of the same family detained in northeast Syria. “It was so easy to get to Syria . .... But then we found there was no way out.”

Human Rights Watch said it wrote to Trinidad’s minister of national security on Dec. 21, 2022, requesting details on Trinidad and Tobago’s policies and practices regarding the repatriation of its nationals from northeast Syria, but despite repeated requests, had not received the requested information as of Feb. 15, 2023.

On Feb. 15, 2023, Trinidad Attorney General Reginald Armour wrote to Human Rights Watch that his office “has been working assiduously with all stakeholders,” including other government ministries, on a policy framework for repatriations but gave no timeline. A separate Feb.

15, 2023, communication from the Ministry of Foreign and Caribbean Community Affairs also indicated that it was “actively engaged” on the issue.

In a press release issued Monday, Armour took issue with Human Rights

Watch’s assertions about government inaction. He said it was inaccurate to state that the government has taken almost no steps to seek the return of its nationals.

“I made it clear that as a sovereign democratic state, Trinidad and Tobago is cognizant of what is required in the best interests of its nationals, including their physical and psychological health and welfare, their fundamental rights and the national security and public interest considerations involved and that all of this was being actively addressed and balanced,” he said.

Armour added it was important for Trinidad and Tobago to investigate and balance national-security concerns with any possible repatriations.