Caribbean to Caliphate: Trinidad and Tobago - People & Power | 17 May 2017

Caribbean to Caliphate - People & Power

The Caribbean state of Trinidad and Tobago is traditionally most famous for its spectacular annual carnival, its cricketing prowess and of being the birthplace of calypso music. But more recently it's been getting a more disturbing reputation - as the nation with the highest recruitment rates of ISIL fighters in the Western Hemisphere.

So why have so many young Trinidadians been driven to travel thousands of kilometres to participate in the conflicts in Iraq and Syria?

According to Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, the leader of the Jamaat al-Muslimeen group, one of the lead causes why young, black men are joining ISIL is their marginalisation.

"The Africans are going to a pool of unemployment, they just sit in the ghetto and do nothing. And then drugs come in and it's a haven for the drugs. And now the guns are in and so the murder rate is just spiralling out of control," says Abu Bakr.

People & Power sent correspondent Juliana Ruhfus and director Dom Rotheroe to investigate how the Caribbean island nation has become a recruitment hub for ISIL.

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