Sobers: T&T assisting nationals caught up in Middle East war crisis

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter 

[email protected]

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers says the Gov­ern­ment has al­ready as­sist­ed at least three Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als seek­ing to leave parts of the Mid­dle East af­fect­ed by the on­go­ing con­flict in­volv­ing the Unit­ed States, Is­rael and Iran.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Sobers said while sev­er­al na­tion­als have reached out for guid­ance, on­ly a small num­ber have re­quired di­rect evac­u­a­tion as­sis­tance so far.

“I think to date, we’ve fa­cil­i­tat­ed maybe about two or three per­sons. So that’s what I’m say­ing. It’s not a large amount, be­cause the ma­jor­i­ty of them ac­tu­al­ly live and work in the re­gion. So they just re­al­ly want­ed to know that Trinidad and To­ba­go was there… this ad­min­is­tra­tion was there for them, and we are,” Sobers said.

The min­is­ter ex­plained that the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs has been main­tain­ing con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion with na­tion­als across the Gulf re­gion, large­ly through mes­sag­ing plat­forms.

Sobers said em­bassy of­fi­cials have been added to sev­er­al What­sApp groups used by T&T na­tion­als liv­ing and work­ing in the re­gion to en­sure they re­ceive time­ly up­dates and as­sis­tance.

“But in terms of the Gulf re­gion, we’ve been li­ais­ing with many of the Gulf coun­tries, es­pe­cial­ly the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, the King­dom of Bahrain, and Sau­di Ara­bia. And we’ve been, as I in­di­cat­ed be­fore, es­sen­tial­ly on near­ly all of the What­sApp groups,” he said.

Sobers said Gov­ern­ment is al­so work­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to cre­ate safe routes for na­tion­als who may need to leave the re­gion.

He said dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of es­tab­lish­ing an air cor­ri­dor that would al­low safe pas­sage out of the Gulf.

In the mean­time, al­ter­na­tive arrange­ments have al­so been ex­plored through neigh­bour­ing coun­tries.

He said T&T has al­so se­cured an arrange­ment with Sau­di Ara­bia to as­sist na­tion­als who may need to tran­sit out of the re­gion.

Un­der the arrange­ment, na­tion­als who sub­mit the re­quired in­for­ma­tion to the Trinidad and To­ba­go High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don can be al­lowed en­try in­to Sau­di Ara­bia with­out a visa for the pur­pose of on­ward trav­el.

“The King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia has agreed to al­low all na­tion­als to en­ter Sau­di Ara­bia visa-free to tran­sit out of Sau­di Ara­bia, ei­ther through Riyadh or Jed­dah, on­wards to an­oth­er des­ti­na­tion out of the Gulf re­gion at this point in time,” Sobers said.

How­ev­er, the min­is­ter stressed that the mea­sure is strict­ly for tran­sit pur­pos­es and does not grant blan­ket visa-free ac­cess.

He added that in­di­vid­u­als must first sub­mit the re­quired doc­u­men­ta­tion to the High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don, which will for­ward the in­for­ma­tion to Sau­di au­thor­i­ties for pro­cess­ing.

Sobers said Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to close­ly mon­i­tor de­vel­op­ments in the re­gion and re­main in di­rect con­tact with na­tion­als who may re­quire as­sis­tance.