PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad  (CMC) — The United States (US) based Human Rights Watch (HRW) is calling on the newly elected Trinidad and Tobago government to take immediate steps to repatriate more than 90 of its nationals, including over 50 children, who remain detained in war-torn camps and prisons in northeast Syria and Iraq.

“We urge you to act as quickly as possible to bring home all detained Trinidad and Tobago nationals for rehabilitation and reintegration, prioritising the returns of the most vulnerable, including children,” HRW Children’s Rights Advocacy Director Jo Becker wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar.

Becker said any adults in Syria and Iraq linked to serious crimes can be prosecuted under Trinidad and Tobago laws.

“Your swift action can close this troubled chapter for Trinidad and Tobago and allow these individuals to be reunified with their families and rebuild their lives,” Becker said.

In 2024, the international non-governmental organisation that conducts research and advocacy on human rights said the Trinidad and Tobago government should heed the renewed call by the United Nations’ (UN) top counterterrorism expert to bring home all its nationals detained in northeast Syria for alleged association with the Islamic state.

HRW said then that the UN made the expert’s findings public on December 18, 2023, after the expert, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, visited locked camps and other detention centres in northeast Syria where US-backed, regional forces are holding an estimated 90 Trinidadians, including at least 21 women and 56 children.

The Trinidadians are among more than 55,000 Syrians and foreigners from dozens of countries, most of them children, detained in camps and prisons for alleged ISIS ties. Most have been detained since at least 2019.

None of the detained Trinidadians have been charged with a crime or had access to a judge to challenge their detention. Most are children who were born in the detention camps or taken to Syria by their parents and never chose to live under ISIS.

In December last year, the former speaker of the House of Assembly, Nizam Mohammed, who chaired an advisory committee on repatriation created in March 2023, said the panel has not received resources or even responses from the government to its repatriation proposals.

Becker said HRW documented life-threatening conditions at the camps and detention facilities, including inadequate healthcare, clean water and education. She said that interviews with detained nationals revealed harrowing experiences, such as children hiding from sexual predators and youth being misled into travelling to Syria under false pretences.

Becker said despite repeated calls from local advocates, no concrete action has been taken, Becker said.

“The inaction of the previous Trinidad and Tobago government has allowed its nationals to endure life-threatening conditions for more than six years.

“We had hoped that former prime minister (Dr Keith) Rowley’s March 2023 appointment of a three-member team…to facilitate the repatriation of Trinidad and Tobago’s nationals from northeast Syria and Iraq, would have resulted in concrete action,”  she wrote, adding “As  you well know, however, that is not the case, leaving Trinidad and Tobago nationals to endure even more suffering.”

Becker said at least 39 other countries have repatriated more than 12,000 of their nationals from Syria and a 2022 HRW study on the reintegration of returned children in Europe and Asia found that many of them were adjusting well.

Last month, two children, born to Trinidadian parents, were returned to Trinidad and Tobago to be placed with their grandparents under the protection of a valid guardianship order issued by the High Court of England and Wales.