Kali­fa Clyne

Bar­ba­dos made in­ter­na­tion­al news this week when a British cou­ple was shot and robbed on the is­land.The In­de­pen­dent news­pa­per re­port­ed that the cou­ple – 59-year-old Ann and 72-year-old Philip Pri­or – were re­turn­ing to a cruise ship in Bridgetown at 2 pm on Sun­day.The Suf­folk cou­ple had been on a three-month cruise.Pri­or was shot in the pelvis and his wife was shot in her right thigh.

The news­pa­per re­port­ed that oth­er tourists and passers-by rushed to help them af­ter the at­tack and they were tak­en to Queen Eliz­a­beth Hos­pi­tal where they were treat­ed.Yes­ter­day, the Bar­ba­dos Na­tion news­pa­per re­port­ed two men had been ar­rest­ed for the shoot­ing.Pe­tra Roach, Bar­ba­dos Tourism Au­thor­i­ty's vice-pres­i­dent, sales and mar­ket­ing, Eu­rope, told the trav­el Web site, TTG Dig­i­tal, shoot­ings were quite rare.

"We pride our­selves in be­ing one of the safest des­ti­na­tions. This is just an ab­solute­ly un­usu­al sit­u­a­tion," she said.The last time it was re­port­ed that a tourist was shot on the is­land was in 2009 when an­oth­er Suf­folk cou­ple were walk­ing back to their ho­tel and were ac­cost­ed by two gun­men.Bar­ba­dos, a pop­u­lar tourist des­ti­na­tion, record­ed 27 homi­cides in 2011.Ac­cord­ing to the British For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Of­fice, 175,000 British peo­ple vis­it­ed the is­land in 2010.