Imam: Children must not suffer

Senior Investigative Reporter

shaliza.hassanali@guardian.co.tt

After 12 members of Rio Claro Imam Nazim Mohammed’s family went to the Islamic State to become ISIS fighters and were killed, the religious leader yesterday made a passionate plea to the T&T Government to repatriate Trini children living in deplorable camps in Syria.

Mohammed’s 12 relatives left Trinidad between 2015 and 2018 to join the extremist group and he has not received any word from them in years.

The 12 were part of a group of 19 men, women and children who entered Syria and Iraq illegally as jihadists but were caught by security forces.

Mohammed said yesterday the dozen family members are feared dead. The remaining seven have been imprisoned and living in camps.

Mohammed’s 58-year-old daughter, Aneesa Mohammed-Waheed and her three daughters Aidah, 23, Azizah, 32, and Sabirah, 29, are each serving 20-year sentences in Iraq for illegally entering the country.

His granddaughter Sumiyah, her husband Akeil and their 14-year-old son, Samir, are in camps in Syria. Sumiyah, Akeil and Samir have been detained there for “six or seven years now. They have them as detainees.”

He said the 19 family members went to the war-torn countries on their own. Information regarding the seven has been limited, Mohammed said.

This has been worrying Mohammed to no end.

At 83, Mohammed said he was losing hope, saying the repatriation process for Samir and all the other T&T children in Syria was taking too long.

“Yes, it’s taking a long while but I don’t know the reason why,” said Mohammed, who heads the Masjid Umar Ibn Khattab Jamaat in Boos Village, Rio Claro.

Mohammed agreed with Chaguanas West MP Dinesh Rambally that the Government’s slow pace in addressing the repatriation of Trinidadian children detained in Syria camps has been further complicated by the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

In a media release yesterday, Rambally said this development adds an alarming layer of instability to an already dire humanitarian crisis.

Last year, the Human Rights Watch stated that at least 90 T&T nationals, with 56 children among them, have been unlawfully detained in life-threatening conditions as ISIS suspects and family members in northeast Syria. The T&T Government, they said, had taken almost no action to help them return ,even as countries including the United States and Barbados repatriated their nationals.

During a telephone interview yesterday, Mohammed said the families of these children are suffering and are praying for them to return home safely.

He said these children found themselves in a place they should not have been, due to no fault of their own.

Some were fooled by their parents.

Many left Trinidad unaware they were being taken to Syria and Iraq, he said, adding the children should not be paying the price for their parents’ bad judgement or poor decision-making.

“At least the Government should consider that … that they are our citizens.”

He said outsiders have been coming to our shores living happy and comfortably, while our children are imprisoned in Syrian camps and are being ill-treated.

“It’s not right,” Mohammed said.

Mohammed said he would not cast blame on the Government for the children being in Syria.

“The Government could always say they did not send them there.”

Human Rights Watch stated that healthcare, clean water, shelter, education and recreation for children are grossly inadequate, while mothers had to hide their children in their tents to protect them from sexual predators and abusive camp guards. Some children have drowned in sewer pits, died in tent fires and been hit and killed by water trucks. Hundreds also died from treatable illnesses.

In January, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said no T&T national in Syria had been repatriated to date, giving the assurance that efforts to do so are ongoing.

Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Amery Browne also stated that while the issue of repatriation has been engaging the Government’s attention, it’s not a matter that can be treated overnight, as there is a national security element to consider.

Last March, Rowley established a three-man repatriation committee headed by Nizam Mohammed to advise and develop a legislative and policy framework to facilitate and execute the repatriation of nationals in the conflict zone.

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