Great efforts to get Barbadians out of hurricane-hit islands
The Barbados Government is doing all it can to locate locals trying to get home from neighbouring hurricane impacted islands.
However, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Maxine McClean said that the effort was being hampered by the fact that in several islands telecommunications services were down.
“It is a difficult task. It is a slow process but I am happy that we have been able to get some Barbadians home,” she said on Wednesday evening as 12 Barbadians touched down at the Grantley Adams International Airport after being rescued from the British Virgin Islands which were heavily impacted during the passage of Category Five Hurricane Irma.
The group was brought in by a Regional Security System (RSS) transport plane.
“We have had a promise with the United Kingdom through their Commission that as they go into the various overseas territories including the Turks and Caicos, Tortola et cetera that we will try our best to get Barbadians evacuated as soon as possible. We continue to work with Caricom, that would include the RSS, Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency and of course, the Barbados Defense Force,” she pointed out.
The senator admitted that it was “an extremely challenging task” as they were several islands affected belonging to various territories some of which were Dutch, French and English, she stressed that this meant that a number of different legal arrangements had to be made.
“There are some countries that we need to get some information from as there are some islands that we have not yet heard anything from. Even access by sea appears to be difficult. We just have to persevere,” she added.
Mcclean therefore called on Barbadians that knew of persons in affected areas to provide the Ministry with the names of these individuals.
She also said that these circumstances underlined the need for a ‘virtual consul’, which allowed citizens traveling abroad to provide electronic information as to their whereabouts overseas.