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Trinidadian women urge government to repatriate families before Turkey renews assault
Women and children from Trinidad and Tobago are trapped in Syrian refugee camps. Their families are desperately seeking help. At least 25 Trinidadians are reportedly stuck at camps for displaced persons in Northern Syria (AFP)
By Amandla Thomas-Johnson
Published date: 22 October 2019 14:31 UTC | Last update: 20 hours 30 min ago
A group of Trinidadian women has urged their government to step up efforts to repatriate their families held at a Kurdish-run camp in northern Syria, fearing they could be caught in fighting between the Turkish army and Kurdish militias.
The women said they feared that “devastating things” could happen to their families, including several children, unless the government of Trinidad and Tobago acted immediately. The families are at the al-Hol refugee camp, which has been rocked by unrest because of recent events.
'The families are worried that by the time the government gives the go-ahead, it will be too late'
Nearly two weeks ago, Turkey launched an offensive in northern Syria against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), eliciting a strong military response from Syrian government forces.
Turkey agreed last Thursday to pause its offensive against the Kurdish fighters for five days at the behest of the United States, giving time for the People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia to clear from the Turkish-Syrian border.
But the temporary halt is set to expire on Tuesday evening and families fear a return to violence.
“I’m worried right now about the fighting. They could come in at any time and do them harm,” Yacina Alimayu, whose sister, Amadi Alimayu, 32, and her three children are being held at al-Hawl, told Middle East Eye.
Their call also comes as photos have emerged showing the unhealthy conditions that the Trinidadian children have suffered at al-Hol, a Kurdish-run camp home to the majority of Trinidadian wives and children of suspected Islamic State (IS) group fighters.
Urging the government to take advantage of the five-day pause agreed between Turkish forces and the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), she added: “I think that we should move faster, we don’t know how long they will hold up the peace treaty. We should move faster.”
At least 130 Trinidad and Tobagonian nationals went to Iraq and Syria between 2013 and 2016, leaving the Caribbean nation as one of the highest per capita sources for those who would eventually join IS's so-called caliphate.
Among those who travelled were a large number of women and children, who went alongside men, many of whom have since died in the fighting.
While a small handful of women and children have returned and been reintegrated into society with the assistance of authorities, it is thought that at least 25 remain stuck in the Kurdish-run camps after fleeing from IS-held territory as the SDF took charge.
Efforts to bring them home have been stepped up this year and led by Felicia Perkins-Ferreira, who in January made the 20,000km round trip between the islands of the Caribbean and the Middle East to rescue her two sons at neighbouring al-Roj camp. Five years ago, the two had been abducted by their father.
Perkins-Ferreira has been liaising with government authorities on behalf of Yacina and two other women who have 11 family members between them at the camps.
The women have met regularly at her home on the outskirts of Trinidad’s capital Port of Spain for support, to counsel each other, fundraise for the costly trip and to sort paperwork, including authorisation documents required by Kurdish officials for them to take charge of the children.
It is understood that a delegation including Yacina, Perkins-Ferreira and government officials is expected to travel to Syria to collect the families.
But Trinidad and Tobago's authorities have yet to grant emergency passports which would allow family members stuck at the camps to return, Perkins-Ferreira said.
“The families are worried that, by the time the government gives the go ahead, it will be too late,” she said. “They’re saying that the government is taking too long and that the longer they delay, shelling and other devastating things could happen to their families over in Syria.”
Perkins-Ferreira also told MEE that the women had not yet been able to raise the tens of thousands of dollars needed to cover travel costs.
Stuart Young, Trinidad and Tobago’s minister of national security, did not respond to a request for comment.
'Things are getting bad'
Amadi and her family are thought to have arrived at al-Hol camp earlier this year as part of an exodus of people fleeing IS's final slices of territory, as US-backed Kurdish forces moved in. A teacher, she had travelled pregnant to Syria with her now-deceased husband and their two children in 2014.
Yacina said that her sister told her last week over the phone that “things were getting bad” and said that her hands had begun to swell due to the cold weather at the camp, which is home to nearly 70,000 people mostly living in makeshift tents. “She’s in an open place and doesn’t have money to buy warm clothes,” Yacina said.
Pictures obtained by MEE point to the deplorable conditions that Amadi’s children face at al-Hol, where more than half of the population are under 12. In addition to a photo of flies gathering on the mouth of a young boy, one image shows festering flesh on the scalp of another.
There have also been routine clashes between inmates and guards at al-Hol, with one Kurdish official describing the security situation at the overcrowded camp as a “ticking time bomb”.
“The situation is dangerous and only becomes worse,” said SDF spokesman Mustapha Bali in early October, after a child was stabbed in a fresh round of violence at the camp. He added that guns and weapons have been smuggled in.
Since the start of the Turkish assault on 9 October, several hundred women and children have reportedly escaped from Ain Issa camp, which has also been hit by shelling, along with another camp for displaced persons.
The deteriorating situation has prompted a change of direction in policy among some countries with nationals held in these places. Britain has begun to look at repatriating children born to suspected IS fighters, while Belgium has said it will evacuate IS suspects held by the Kurds.
Some states remain reluctant to take in mothers who knowingly took their children to IS-held territory, though it is thought that Trinidad and Tobago has allowed some to return.
Yacina asked for Trinidad and Tobago’s government to show leniency towards her sister. “She was only going [to Syria] as an obedient wife," she said. "I’m asking people to open their eyes to this and help. We’re just asking for a little bit more aggressive help.”
hydroep wrote:Trinidadian women urge government to repatriate families before Turkey renews assault
Women and children from Trinidad and Tobago are trapped in Syrian refugee camps. Their families are desperately seeking help. At least 25 Trinidadians are reportedly stuck at camps for displaced persons in Northern Syria (AFP)
By Amandla Thomas-Johnson
Published date: 22 October 2019 14:31 UTC | Last update: 20 hours 30 min ago
A group of Trinidadian women has urged their government to step up efforts to repatriate their families held at a Kurdish-run camp in northern Syria, fearing they could be caught in fighting between the Turkish army and Kurdish militias.
The women said they feared that “devastating things” could happen to their families, including several children, unless the government of Trinidad and Tobago acted immediately. The families are at the al-Hol refugee camp, which has been rocked by unrest because of recent events.
'The families are worried that by the time the government gives the go-ahead, it will be too late'
Nearly two weeks ago, Turkey launched an offensive in northern Syria against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), eliciting a strong military response from Syrian government forces.
Turkey agreed last Thursday to pause its offensive against the Kurdish fighters for five days at the behest of the United States, giving time for the People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia to clear from the Turkish-Syrian border.
But the temporary halt is set to expire on Tuesday evening and families fear a return to violence.
“I’m worried right now about the fighting. They could come in at any time and do them harm,” Yacina Alimayu, whose sister, Amadi Alimayu, 32, and her three children are being held at al-Hawl, told Middle East Eye.
Their call also comes as photos have emerged showing the unhealthy conditions that the Trinidadian children have suffered at al-Hol, a Kurdish-run camp home to the majority of Trinidadian wives and children of suspected Islamic State (IS) group fighters.
Urging the government to take advantage of the five-day pause agreed between Turkish forces and the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), she added: “I think that we should move faster, we don’t know how long they will hold up the peace treaty. We should move faster.”
At least 130 Trinidad and Tobagonian nationals went to Iraq and Syria between 2013 and 2016, leaving the Caribbean nation as one of the highest per capita sources for those who would eventually join IS's so-called caliphate.
Among those who travelled were a large number of women and children, who went alongside men, many of whom have since died in the fighting.
While a small handful of women and children have returned and been reintegrated into society with the assistance of authorities, it is thought that at least 25 remain stuck in the Kurdish-run camps after fleeing from IS-held territory as the SDF took charge.
Efforts to bring them home have been stepped up this year and led by Felicia Perkins-Ferreira, who in January made the 20,000km round trip between the islands of the Caribbean and the Middle East to rescue her two sons at neighbouring al-Roj camp. Five years ago, the two had been abducted by their father.
Perkins-Ferreira has been liaising with government authorities on behalf of Yacina and two other women who have 11 family members between them at the camps.
The women have met regularly at her home on the outskirts of Trinidad’s capital Port of Spain for support, to counsel each other, fundraise for the costly trip and to sort paperwork, including authorisation documents required by Kurdish officials for them to take charge of the children.
It is understood that a delegation including Yacina, Perkins-Ferreira and government officials is expected to travel to Syria to collect the families.
But Trinidad and Tobago's authorities have yet to grant emergency passports which would allow family members stuck at the camps to return, Perkins-Ferreira said.
“The families are worried that, by the time the government gives the go ahead, it will be too late,” she said. “They’re saying that the government is taking too long and that the longer they delay, shelling and other devastating things could happen to their families over in Syria.”
Perkins-Ferreira also told MEE that the women had not yet been able to raise the tens of thousands of dollars needed to cover travel costs.
Stuart Young, Trinidad and Tobago’s minister of national security, did not respond to a request for comment.
'Things are getting bad'
Amadi and her family are thought to have arrived at al-Hol camp earlier this year as part of an exodus of people fleeing IS's final slices of territory, as US-backed Kurdish forces moved in. A teacher, she had travelled pregnant to Syria with her now-deceased husband and their two children in 2014.
Yacina said that her sister told her last week over the phone that “things were getting bad” and said that her hands had begun to swell due to the cold weather at the camp, which is home to nearly 70,000 people mostly living in makeshift tents. “She’s in an open place and doesn’t have money to buy warm clothes,” Yacina said.
Pictures obtained by MEE point to the deplorable conditions that Amadi’s children face at al-Hol, where more than half of the population are under 12. In addition to a photo of flies gathering on the mouth of a young boy, one image shows festering flesh on the scalp of another.
There have also been routine clashes between inmates and guards at al-Hol, with one Kurdish official describing the security situation at the overcrowded camp as a “ticking time bomb”.
“The situation is dangerous and only becomes worse,” said SDF spokesman Mustapha Bali in early October, after a child was stabbed in a fresh round of violence at the camp. He added that guns and weapons have been smuggled in.
Since the start of the Turkish assault on 9 October, several hundred women and children have reportedly escaped from Ain Issa camp, which has also been hit by shelling, along with another camp for displaced persons.
The deteriorating situation has prompted a change of direction in policy among some countries with nationals held in these places. Britain has begun to look at repatriating children born to suspected IS fighters, while Belgium has said it will evacuate IS suspects held by the Kurds.
Some states remain reluctant to take in mothers who knowingly took their children to IS-held territory, though it is thought that Trinidad and Tobago has allowed some to return.
Yacina asked for Trinidad and Tobago’s government to show leniency towards her sister. “She was only going [to Syria] as an obedient wife," she said. "I’m asking people to open their eyes to this and help. We’re just asking for a little bit more aggressive help.”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trinidadian-women-say-government-must-repatriate-families-now-amid-turkish-incursion
VII wrote:WTF allyuh dong dey...
Wednesday 16 October 2019 Azard Ali
Criminologist: Jail ISIS moms
UK criminologist Dr Simon Cottee
WHILE TT citizens who took their families to war-torn Syria and Iraq seek government’s help to return home, a criminologist is calling for the mothers, if ever they return, to be charged with trafficking their children.
Criminologist Dr Simon Cottee, in a keynote address at a recent international conference hosted by the University of the Southern Caribbean, said, “These women, along with their husbands, took their children to a war zone, and in effect, trafficked their sons and daughters into ISIS's machinery of war and sexual servitude. They should face justice for this grave dereliction of parental responsibility.”
The conference’s theme was: Prioritising Caribbean Security in the 21st Century: Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism & Terrorism.
Cottee lectures in criminology at the University of Kent, UK. He is currently writing a book on TT being the largest "exporter" per capita of ISIS fighters to Syria and Iraq. The police, army, Attorney General’s office and Vyana Sharma, who heads the Anti-Terrorism Unit, attended the conference.
Giving an overview of his research into TT nationals who joined ISIS between 2013 and 2016, Cottee said he is quite convinced that the total number is approximately 240.
“This includes men, women and children,” he added.
He said as of January 2018, 30 male TT ISIS fighters had been killed in Syria and Iraq. Only two women, one man, two boys and two teenage girls have returned, he added.
Chairman of the Children’s Authority Hanif Benjamin told Newsday yesterday that a proper investigation would have to be done to determine which parts of the world had been officially declared war zones at the time when the mothers left with their children.
He said, “From where I sit, one cannot think that an offence has or has not been committed. Did these parents knew they were going to a place where war had been declared? The proper research has to be done. So therefore I have no view.”
Cottee told the conference that, based on sources in TT and journalists in Syria, there are 60 TT minors in detention camps in Syria and Iraq. He added, however, that journalists believe that Concerned Muslims of T&T’s figure of 90 seems more plausible.
Citing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which TT is a signatory, Cottee said the Government has the authority to investigate the mothers under human trafficking legislation.
Sayingthe moral case for repatriation of TT mothers and their children from Syria and Iraq is a strong one, Cottee explained, “This may sound like a high figure, but it should be recalled that just over 40 per cent of the 240 Trinis who went to Syria, were minors. They are innocents who didn’t choose to go to Syria to join a genocidal religious-political movement. This makes them victims, and the TT government thus has a duty to bring them home.
"But there is another moral case, however, which is equally strong and flows directly. This is the case for prosecuting the Trini women who took their children to Syria or Iraq. (I exempt the male adult parents from this, because they raise another set of issues, which I’ll discuss shortly.)”
Cottee said the mothers of the minors, on their return, will get off with a slap on the wrist.
In light of that, Cottee suggested TT invoke international human trafficking legislation to prosecute these mothers. The UNprotocol on human trafficking defines it as “the recruitment or receipt of persons…for the purpose of exploitation.”
Under the protocol, exploitation includes “sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery.”
In the case of child trafficking, he added, only the act of recruitment and intent to exploit are relevant. For a conviction, a court would need to satisfy the requirement that the mothers intended to enlist their children into ISIS. He said it was public record that ISIS was conscripting boys into combat as young as ten and girls into marriages (and sexual servitude) as young as nine.
Cottee contended that it could be said that some TT mothers were themselves coerced or trafficked by their husbands into going to Syria and Iraq.
https://newsday.co.tt/2019/10/16/crimin ... isis-moms/
timelapse wrote:They need to understand that even minors that went there are not "children". The extremist ideology has already been planted in their minds.This is a whole different can of worms.What is going to happen when they come back and Omar and his cronies get them?
Bombs in Citygate?
Suicide bomber in carnival?
Bombs in Maracas beach?
Sniper attacks ?
Why save monsters when you can prevent the loss of innocent lives that have nothing to do with their stupid cause?
maj. tom wrote:The conference’s theme was: Prioritising Caribbean Security in the 21st Century: Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism & Terrorism.
matr1x wrote:Force feed the returning ones pork. Problem solved.
agent007 wrote:The local self proclaimed Imam who calls himself a terrorist financier and recruiter should be in jail. The list the govt claims to have that I am not seeing any results on, should be revised and looked into ASAP. These radical twisted minded folks should not be allowed to mix with wider society because this can create trouble on a whole different scale, more than just dust bin explosives we talking about here.
matr1x wrote:Bacon solves world problems
De Dragon wrote:matr1x wrote:Bacon solves world problems
Bacon doesn't even have to be pork.
pugboy wrote:He was so proud and vocal about helping recruit folks to go and now he crying down the place.
I am disappointed the other Muslims do not issue a statement about him.agent007 wrote:The local self proclaimed Imam who calls himself a terrorist financier and recruiter should be in jail. The list the govt claims to have that I am not seeing any results on, should be revised and looked into ASAP. These radical twisted minded folks should not be allowed to mix with wider society because this can create trouble on a whole different scale, more than just dust bin explosives we talking about here.
Trini, Bajan woman on life with ISIS: We thought it was irie
SIMON COTTEE
Aliya Abdul Haqq in Trinidad before leaving to join ISIS in Syria along with her brother. -
Aliya Abdul Haqq, one of the hundred or so TT citizens currently stranded in the Al Hol camp in Syria, recently told two foreign journalists that life inside the ISIS caliphate was “irie” – a Jamaican expression for nice or cool. Abdul Haqq, 34, is the sister of Tariq Abdul Haqq, a former lawyer and Commonwealth Games boxing finalist who traded his enviable life in Trinidad for war and death in Syria.
Abdul Haqq was interviewed alongside Abbey Greene, 33, who is from Barbados and was married to Abdul Haqq’s brother Tariq.
If you want to know what an unrepentant female ISIS member sounds like, you could do worse than listen to the Popular Front podcast interview with these two sisters. It makes for spine-tingling listening, not because the women sound like bloodcurdling monsters, but because of the cold and carefree detachment with which they talk about the genocidal violence of the Islamic State.
And if you’re a proud Trini you’ll no doubt be disconcerted to hear that Abdul Haqq doesn’t share your national pride, and is sharply critical of her country of birth.
Abdul Haqq and Greene travelled to Syria in November 2014 with their respective husbands, Osyaba Muhammad and Tariq Abdul Haqq. While 240 TT citizens travelled to Syria between 2013 and 2016, Greene, to my knowledge, is the only Bajan to have gone to join ISIS.
Abbey Greene, the Barbadian widow of Trinidadian Tariq Abdul Haqq, brother of Aliya Abdul Haqq. -
“We came (to Syria) with our husbands, we made hijrah (migrated) to live under the Islamic State, under the law of Islam, and we basically followed our husbands,” says Greene.
Miraculously, both women survived the slaughterhouse of Baghuz, the last sliver of the ISIS caliphate, which fell in March 2019.
Abdul Haqq says before leaving TT she was never radical.
“I was into makeup, piercings and all these crazy things, which I still like.” It wasn’t until after her father died – Yacoob Abdul Haqq was accidentally shot and killed in May 2013 – that she and her family “made this big turnaround.”
Tariq, in Abdul Haqq’s telling, spearheaded this metamorphosis: “My brother came home one day and he said he was going to Syria.
“I started laughing,” she recalls, but within months she had come round to his way of thinking, because in Syria, “it’s strict sharia, which is what I like, so I said, ‘Let me try and see what Syria is about.’”
It is an oddly blasé way of describing what must have been a momentous life decision.
Asked what life was like when she first arrived in Syria, Abdul Haqq relays that she was based in Raqqa, then the de-facto capital of the caliphate.
Aliya Abdul Haqq -
“It matched pretty well (my expectation). There were airstrikes, but it was really mild, so it was still very much like my country (TT). But under sharia, it wasn’t extreme then…It was normal life, we had tea parties, pyjama parties, it was really irie…cool, calm.”
Apparently, she deliberately avoided seeing the public beheadings that were a regular feature in the city back in 2014, but admitted her son had been exposed to several and that it had a violent effect on him.
Do these women have any regret over following their husbands to Syria and for all that ISIS has done?
Not one bit, it seems.
In fact, at several points in the interview, when Abdul Haqq and Greene are questioned about ISIS’s extreme violence against civilians and the rape and sexual enslavement of Yazidis, their default response is either to dodge the question or to rationalise ISIS’s violence as a legitimate response to the violence meted out against ISIS.
They are still clearly bitter about the loss of Baghuz.
“It was a madness, a massacre,” Abdul Haqq says, adding, referring to the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), “They bombed the orphanage, they bombed a children’s hospital.”
Greene concurs: “The killing has come from both sides.”
What about the beheading of western hostages?
“I don’t know…The men deal with this,” says Abdul Haqq.
Did the brutality of ISIS cause them to rethink their commitment to the group? This question prompts a long pause.
Then this from Greene: “I really don’t think about that question.”
On the sexual enslavement of Yazidi girls and women, Abdul Haqq confides that she had met two Yazidi women in Raqqa: “They were slaves to a Bosnian guy…and from what (one of them) told me, she said she really loved her slave-master, and she accepted Islam.”
What about ISIS’s systematic killing of Yazidi men – what can justify that?
More silence. Then Greene repeats what has become a mantra for her: “For me, this war is never-ending, and it’s on both sides.”
When probed about slavery, Greene seemed reluctant to condemn it outright, insisting: “Slavery in Islam is not like slavery back in the day — there are certain rules you have to follow, you have to show rahma (mercy), you must feed them, take care of them.”
It is a matter of historical record that ISIS militants did not just enslave Yazidi women and girls, but also violently raped them as part of an official genocidal policy. In TT, a group called the Concerned Muslims of T&T has been calling for the repatriation of all Trini women and children detained in Syria and Iraq, but Abdul Haqq and Greene do not seem particularly desperate to return to the Caribbean. Abdul Haqq is particularly hard on Trinidad: “You know now the crime rate in my country is spiralling, gangsterism and all of this gay and lesbianism craziness, gang-warfare – it’s so crazy.
“I just want peace,” she adds.
“I want a normal life,” says Greene.
Do these women deserve either peace or a normal life after joining a group that had nothing but contempt for the peace and life of so many others? And if they are eventually to return to TT and Barbados, what consequences should they face for joining one of the world’s most violent terrorist groups?
These are difficult questions and there is little appetite on the part of the current TT government to actively assist in the repatriation of ISIS-affiliated Trini women and children.
The testimony of Aliya Abdul Haqq and Abbey Greene is unlikely to convince it to change its non-committal stance on the issue.
Simon Cottee is a senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Kent, UK, and a contributing writer to The Atlantic.
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