Fear grows for Trinidad and Tobago nationals in Syria camps

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

As fight­ing edges clos­er to camps hous­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als in north­east Syr­ia, What­sApp mes­sages cir­cu­lat­ing on­line de­scribe fear, aban­don­ment and the col­lapse of ba­sic hu­man­i­tar­i­an sup­port.

In one voice record­ing, a Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al in one of the camps says the area was plunged in­to dark­ness af­ter three elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tors were re­moved. The gen­er­a­tors, sup­plied by pri­vate con­trac­tors and paid for month­ly by res­i­dents, pro­vid­ed heat and pow­er to tents.

“The war is pend­ing, it’s very close by,” the voice says. “They pro­vid­ed three gen­er­a­tors which we pay elec­tric bills for each month. Any­way, they took those three gen­er­a­tors and they ran away. So, we have ab­solute­ly no elec­tric.”

With­out pow­er, res­i­dents can­not charge phones, ac­cess in­for­ma­tion, re­frig­er­ate food or med­i­cines, or main­tain con­sis­tent con­tact with the out­side world. For many, mo­bile phones re­main the on­ly link to rel­a­tives, aid or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion.

“I don’t know when I’ll be able to re­ply to you all again,” the speak­er adds, warn­ing the mes­sage may be their last be­cause their phone bat­tery is run­ning low.

“Right now, we’re just hop­ing that ei­ther, this sit­u­a­tion comes down, or whether it’s war and we die, or the doors open some­how and we get out of here,” they say. “We have thor­ough­ly giv­en up hope in our coun­try, and that’s just a sad re­al­i­ty.”

“I’m just send­ing my last mes­sages out to let you all know what’s re­al­ly go­ing on,” the voice note said.

The mes­sage has spread across Trinidad and To­ba­go, height­en­ing con­cern among fam­i­lies with rel­a­tives still trapped in the camps.

Ra­heema Khan, whose fam­i­ly mem­bers are among those strand­ed, said she first learned of the es­ca­lat­ing sit­u­a­tion through so­cial me­dia and news re­ports. She said women in the camp mes­saged her to say the gen­er­a­tors were re­moved, leav­ing fam­i­lies in cold and dark­ness.

“It’s win­ter­time,” Khan said. “They need the gen­er­a­tors for elec­tric­i­ty and to keep their tents warm… to use their heater to keep their tents warm.”

Khan al­so said re­ports sug­gest the Syr­i­an De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Forces, which con­trolled the camps and act­ed as the main ne­go­ti­at­ing body, have been de­feat­ed and that the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment may now as­sume con­trol.

“Now we don’t know what’s go­ing on with the camps be­cause they said the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment will be tak­ing over the camps,” she said. “And I do not know what this means for the women and chil­dren present­ly there now.”

Khan said any change in con­trol could sig­nif­i­cant­ly al­ter the diplo­mat­ic land­scape. She said the Trinidad and To­ba­go gov­ern­ment had pre­vi­ous­ly point­ed to dif­fi­cul­ties ne­go­ti­at­ing with the SDF as a ma­jor bar­ri­er to repa­tri­a­tion.

“The gov­ern­ment was say­ing pre­vi­ous­ly that they were hav­ing prob­lems bring­ing these cit­i­zens home be­cause they will not talk to our non-state ac­tor,” Khan said. “But now that changes every­thing.”

She said if the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment takes con­trol, for­mal diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment could be­come pos­si­ble, in­clud­ing the is­suance of trav­el doc­u­ments.

“We should be able to get trav­el doc­u­ments, and we should be able to bring them home,” she said.

Khan said rel­a­tives on­ly be­came aware of the de­vel­op­ments yes­ter­day and have not yet been able to for­mal­ly con­tact the Trinidad and To­ba­go gov­ern­ment. She said she in­tends to reach out to the Prime Min­is­ter and the in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee, in­clud­ing Min­is­ter Sobers.

“I’m hop­ing for help,” she said. “Be­cause it sounds to me from what I’m read­ing on­line that the US is clos­ing down these camps.”

She al­so raised con­cern about re­ports that the Syr­i­an gov­ern­ment has be­gun open­ing pris­ons and re­leas­ing de­tainees.

“I don’t know if they de­cide to do that with Al-Roj now and they de­cide to just open the gates,” she said. “Be­cause they are blocked around like a prison with gates and wires and every­thing.”

The Gov­ern­ment has es­tab­lished an in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee to co­or­di­nate the repa­tri­a­tion of na­tion­als strand­ed in Syr­ia. The com­mit­tee in­volves sev­er­al min­istries, in­clud­ing For­eign Af­fairs, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and Le­gal Af­fairs, and is tasked with nav­i­gat­ing diplo­mat­ic, le­gal and lo­gis­ti­cal chal­lenges.

Khan said she be­lieves the re­port­ed shift in con­trol could make it eas­i­er for the com­mit­tee to en­gage in for­mal talks and se­cure trav­el doc­u­ments for those in the camps.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and CARI­COM Sean Sobers. He re­quest­ed that ques­tions be sent to him, but no re­sponse was re­ceived up to press time.