UK rescue flights for tourists fleeing ‘out of control’ wildfires in Rhodes and Corfu
UK airlines are scrambling evacuation flights to the wildfire-ravage islands of Rhodes and Corfu where up to 10,000 British tourists are stranded in a “living nightmare” as a fresh red alert is issued for Crete. The two biggest holiday firms Tui and Jet2 have axed all flights to the island in the coming days after holidaymakers forced to flee their hotels had to sleep on floors in schools, airports and sports centres – but other firms, including Ryanair, Thomas Cook and easyJet continue to fly tourists who want to travel to Rhodes. The popular destination of Crete was also placed under an “extreme” fire warning on Monday, with Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis telling parliament it must “be on constant alert” in the weeks ahead. He declared his country to be “at war” with the blazes and warned of three more “difficult days” before the extreme heat eases. “The climate crisis is already here, it will manifest itself everywhere in the Mediterranean with greater disasters,” Mr Mitsotakis said, just a week after multiple infernos ignited near Athens, destroying homes and businesses, and days after temperatures hit 45C. Prime minister Rishi Sunak urged holidaymakers to remain in touch with tour operators but the Foreign Office has so far not discouraged Britons from travelling to Greece. Urging the UK government to “get a grip”, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran hit out Tory ministers’ “inaction” as she warned current advice was leaving families unable to claim on their insurance to “[pay] the penalty for deciding not to fly out” to Rhodes. More than 2,000 holidaymakers have so far been repatriated in what was described as the largest evacuation in Greek history, with more flights due on Tuesday as Rhodes’ deputy mayor warned the fires remained “out of control” seven days after flaring into life. Helen Tonks, a mother-of-six from Cheshire, accused travel firm Tui of flying her into “living nightmare” on Saturday night, as she told The Sun of landing in Rhodes only to be informed that her hotel had already burned down. The firm has now cancelled all flights to the island until Saturday. Claire Jones, a 36-year-old from Leicestershire on a honeymoon with her new husband Paul was evacuated by coach over the weekend in a “traumatic” journey as fled their hotels on foot carrying babies and small children, with some reporting walking for 10 miles in searing heat. Upgrading the fire risk in Crete to the highest warning level on Monday, Greek authorities also put swathes of the country under notice of a “very high fire risk”, including Athens, the Peloponnese, Karpathos, Kalymnos and Kos. While authorities have suggested the Corfu blazes may be a result of arson, the UK’s former chief scientific advisor Sir David King warned on Monday that the millions of British tourists planning Mediterranean holidays this summer should take Greece as “a big, big warning”. Lamenting that “many people will die from heat stress” due to the relentless heatwaves scorching southern Europe, Sir David said he had “no doubt” that the extreme temperatures are due to melting ice in the Arctic caused by human-led climate breakdown. Temperatures in Rhodes were forecast to climb as high as 40C by Wednesday, as Greece faces its longest heatwave on record. The EU’s civil protection agency has deployed some 450 firefighters and seven planes from Bulgari, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Italy, Malta, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. But the travel industry appeared to be preparing the ground for a restart in tourism in some of the unaffected areas. A spokesperson for Abta, the travel association, said: “We understand that some of the resorts have had their evacuation order removed by the Greek authorities and people have been advised that they can return to the resorts of Lindos, Pefkos and Kalathos. “Travel companies will be liaising with their accommodation providers to ensure that they are ready to receive customers and customers will be notified accordingly.” Chris Elworthy, a 42-year-old farmer from Faversham in Kent, said he had been left £10,000 out of pocket after his easyJet flights to reach a private villa in Pefkos with his wife and two children were cancelled. “We are now £10,000 out of pocket; easyJet is not helping at all with a flight, despite having promised on Twitter that they would provide a voucher or another flight ... 24 hours later they have done nothing,” he said. “The villa is refusing to refund us, and the holiday insurance is saying that we’re not covered because we didn’t have the additional natural disaster cover on top of the ordinary cover.” Dan Jones, a sports teacher from Torquay, had to climb onto a fishing trawler with his sons to escape the raging fires on Saturday night, describing it as “the scariest moment” in his life and adding: “What brave boys.” Estimating that between 7,000 and 10,000 British tourists were on Rhodes due to it being peak holiday season, Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell told LBC that reports of holiday company reps seeming “to have gone missing” was “a deplorable state of affairs” which the government would investigate. But he defended the lack of advice against travelling to Rhodes, saying the fact “that only 10 per cent of the island is affected by these fires” meant tour operators were “best placed to give guidance on whether or not a family or individual’s holidays are going to be ruined by these events”. Downing Street defended not discouraging people from travelling to Rhodes, despite sending a team to help holidaymakers affected by the fires. The PM’s official spokesman said: “The current situation is impacting on a limited area in Rhodes and whilst it’s right to keep it under review and it’s possible that the advice may change we do not want to act out of proportion to the situation on the ground.” There are “not currently” plans to get the RAF to help people leave, he added. Read More Wildfires: Is it safe to travel to Greece right now? 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Teenager is latest victim of spate of deadly shootings across Sweden
A teenager has died after being shot in the southern suburbs of Stockholm – one of a spate of shootings in the country across the last week. Police received were called after loud bangs were heard in Vastertorp at around 8pm local time on Thursday, with the injured boy – whose age was not given – taken to hospital before dying of his wounds overnight. The other shootings include four in the university city of Uppsala – two of them fatal – and two others in Stockholm, where a 13-year-old teenager lost his life. Stockholm police said they were still seeking a suspect. “I don't have a clear answer as to whether this is connected to other murders recently, but it is something we are investigating,” said spokesman Towe Hagg. Sweden has faced an increase in recent years which police and authorities blame on criminal gangs fighting over arms and drug trafficking, using guns and explosive devices.. Earlier this week, the national police chief, Anders Thornberg told a press conference, that this wave of violence had reached an "unprecedented" level. “There have recently been after on an unprecedented scale,” Mr Thornberg said. “Several boys aged between 13 and 15 have been killed, the mother of a criminal was executed at home, and a young man in Uppsala was shot dead on his way to work,” he added. “Citizens are afraid, insecurity is increasing. And this at a time when we have raised our terrorist alert level in the country,” Mr Thornberg said. A number of crimes by gangs had been foiled in recent days, the police chief added, saying that such preventative work was key. “Several people have been arrested and weapons confiscated in Uppsala alone, where the situation is very serious,” Ulf Johansson, a police officer in the region, about 40 miles (65km) north of Stockholm. Up until the end of August this year – so not including the recent spate of incidents – there were 247 shootings across Sweden, according to national statistics. Those led to 30 deaths. Seventy-six of those incidents occurred around the region of Stockholm. In 2022, 62 people were killed in 391 shootings across the country, with 128 of those incidents around the Stockholm region. When announcing those statistics in December, the justice minister, Gunnar Strommer, called it a modern-day record. "Deadly gun violence has increased and unfortunately has hit a new, bloody record this year," he said. Mr Strommer said at the time that those 62 deaths compared to four in Norway, four in Denmark and two in Finland. In 2021, 45 people were shot dead in Sweden. In 2012, the total was 17 Also last year, there were 90 explosions and 101 attempted explosive attacks were recorded, according to the data. So far this year, more than 100 explosions have already been recorded. Sweden has gone from having one of the lowest incidences of gang violence to one of the highest over the last 20 years, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, with the current government vowing to crackdown on gang crime. Read More Nobel Foundation raises the amount for this year’s Nobel Prize awards to 11 million kronor Things to know about Sweden's monarchy as King Carl XVI celebrates 50 years on the throne Sweden's figurehead king celebrates 50 years on the throne On the brink of joining NATO, Sweden seeks to boost its defense spending by 28% Sweden brings more books and handwriting practice back to its tech-heavy schools Trial starts in Sweden of 2 oil executives accused of complicity in war crimes in Sudan
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