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400 People Airlifted to France, Netherlands Ahead of Macron's Irma Tour

  • People getting ready to board a plane at Grand-Case Esperance airport to leave Saint Martin.

    People getting ready to board a plane at Grand-Case Esperance airport to leave Saint Martin. | Photo: AFP

Published 12 September 2017
Opinion

One plane with 278 people aboard landed in Paris, while another with 100 flew into Eindhoven in the southern Netherlands.

French President Emmanuel Macron has scheduled a visit to the region, one day after about 400 people reportedly arrived in France and the Netherlands from Hurricane Irma-ravaged territories.

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One plane with 278 people aboard landed in Paris, while another with 100 flew into Eindhoven in the southern Netherlands from the Guadeloupe capital Pointe-a-Pitre.

Thirty-year-old Clara James, on arriving in Eindhoven, said the Dutch side of St Martin "literally looks like a war zone”.

The Dutch government was blamed for delayed flights of people who were stranded. "They reacted far too late," said Kitty Algra, who was among the first group of 55 Dutch tourists evacuated.

Widescale criticism regarding the evacuation of residents from the French territories labeled the process as being racially mismanaged.

The French and Dutch governments were slammed over the delayed response to the crisis which resulted in at least 11 people died and over 60 percent of homes in St Martin being uninhabitable.

"They gave us phone numbers but they didn't work. Only social media and solidarity worked," said one mother picking up her daughter at Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport.

"People were left to their own devices. They had to set up militias and take turns defending themselves (against looters)," she added. "All the gangs came to the French side... with guns and machetes. It's unbelievably chaotic."

A Rotterdam resident, James, who was returning from St. Martin related the devastating conditions: “And at sunset, at nightfall, the looting starts. Because they have nothing left, their houses have been destroyed... I can't describe it."

A number of arrests were made following looting and violence in St. Martin and popular celebrity spot St. Barthélemy (St. Barts).

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said military personnel had been doubled on the Dutch side of St. Martin, St Maarten. Authorities also evacuated people to Curaçao ahead of a visit by Dutch King Willem-Alexander and the Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk.

The British government has been accused of being slow to respond to subjects in Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and Prime Minister Theresa May has yet to announce any visits to the region.

BVI Premier Orlando Smith pleaded for greater support saying the hurricane, which claimed the lives of five people, left the islands in a “critical” state. “We are a resilient people but this has shaken us to our core,” he elaborated.

But, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said 700 troops were deployed and UK police arrival pending. “These are British people, these are British overseas territories, and we are going to be there for the long term,” Johnson said. The government also earmarked £32m for aid.

Four people were killed on the U.S. Virgin Islands, three in Puerto Rico and one in Barbuda. The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda said the islands had been 90 percent destroyed.

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Some parts of Cuba were inundated with water and roofs extensively damaged.

More than 24,000 people were evacuated in the Dominican Republic, over 10,000 in shelters. Seventeen communities had to be abandoned following flooded roads and bridges.

Farmland and crops were destroyed in Haiti – where Hurricane Matthew killed more than 540 people and caused $2.8bn damage last year.

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