The Ministry of National Security is currently investigating a group of Trinidadians being held at a detention camp in Iraq.
This was disclosed yesterday by National Security Minister Edmund Dillon in response to a question in Parliament by Naparima MP Rodney Charles.
“The Government of T&T, through diplomatic channels and other agencies are investigating T&T citizens are in an Iraq detention camp.”
In a follow-up question, Charles asked if Government will repatriate our citizens, but Dillon again said the matter was being investigated.
Charles tried to dig deeper to find out how many of our citizens were being detained and what was their current status, but Dillon did not give the figure, insisting that the matter was still under probe.
In response to another question, Dillon said his ministry recorded a total of 409,123 nationals of other countries arriving legally during the period January 1 to November 30, 2017.
“Of this total, 14,178 non-nationals overstayed their time and had not yet departed as at November 30, 2017,” Dillon said.
He also stated that information received from the Counter Trafficking Unit (CTU) for the period January 1 to December 31, 2017, four people (two adults and two minors) were reported as smuggled into T&T from Venezuela. The CTU, Dillon said also reported that three Colombians were also smuggled into T&T in 2013.