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Saturday, July 5, 2025

T&T national survives Istanbul airport attack

by

20160629

Gail Alexan­der and Joel Julien

T&T na­tion­al Sher­lin Stew­art, who trav­elled through Turkey's Ataturk air­port on Tues­day, es­caped un­hurt in the ter­ror­ist at­tack which oc­curred at that air­port that day, the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry has con­firmed.

A trau­ma­tised Stew­art, who was in Turkey up to yes­ter­day, told rel­a­tives in T&T, via Face­book, that she had to run when she heard ex­plo­sions at Is­tan­bul's Ataturk air­port and she had re­count­ed a scene of "ut­ter chaos" that day.

The Is­lam­ic State (ISIS) is be­lieved to be re­spon­si­ble for Tues­day's at­tack at the main in­ter­na­tion­al ter­mi­nal at Ataturk, which left 41 dead–main­ly Turk­ish cit­i­zens–and 239 in­jured af­ter three sui­cide bombers struck in tan­dem.

Thir­teen for­eign­ers, from Chi­na, Jor­dan, Tunisia, Uzbek­istan, Iran and Ukraine, were killed in the at­tack.The at­tack­ers first fired shots at peo­ple in the ter­mi­nal be­fore det­o­nat­ing sui­cide vests.

Dra­mat­ic video footage from one part of the air­port showed one ter­ror­ist falling to the floor af­ter be­ing shot and det­o­nat­ing what ap­peared to be ex­plo­sives he was wear­ing or car­ry­ing.

The im­me­di­ate blast which fol­lowed made sur­veil­lance cam­era im­ages erupt in­to bright blind­ing light, then blank­ness.

In­ter­na­tion­al me­dia re­ports de­scribed blood-streaked floors, body parts, pan­ic, chaos and hordes of flee­ing peo­ple dur­ing the at­tack, in which the three young men fired shots and set off ex­plo­sives at three points.

One was re­port­ed in the in­ter­na­tion­al de­par­tures hall and the oth­er two near the ar­rivals hall.

Es­cape

Stew­art, a Roy­al Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al em­ploy­ee from Ch­agua­nas, was re­port­ed to be en­route to an un­known des­ti­na­tion in the Mediter­ranean, to start a job on board a cruise ship.

It is un­der­stood Stew­art has been send­ing mes­sages to her fam­i­ly in T&T and was re­port­ed to be very trau­ma­tised by the ex­pe­ri­ence, though un­hurt phys­i­cal­ly. She was lodged at the Turkey ho­tel up to yes­ter­day.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Den­nis Moses, who con­firmed Stew­art's pres­ence at the scene of the at­tack, told the T&T Guardian con­tact had been made with her and his un­der­stand­ing was that she had been at the air­port at the ac­tu­al time of the at­tack and had wit­nessed it. He al­so con­firmed how shak­en up she was by it.

Moses said: "The Hon­orary Con­sul has in­formed that to date there has been no re­port of death or in­jury to T&T na­tion­als in Turkey.

"How­ev­er, a T&T na­tion­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Stew­art) who was at the (Ataturk) air­port at the time of the at­tack has been lo­cat­ed. Arrange­ments have been made for her to con­tin­ue her on­ward jour­ney. The pas­sen­ger has since been con­tact­ed by the min­istry."He con­firmed Stew­art was safe­ly ac­com­mo­dat­ed at a ho­tel in Turkey.

"The Hon­orary Con­sul has al­so been in di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the pas­sen­ger," he said.Moses said Stew­art would be leav­ing Turkey to con­tin­ue her "on­ward jour­ney... the safe­ty of all our cit­i­zens are of para­mount im­por­tance."

'Not a scratch'

A rel­a­tive of Sher­lin Stew­art's yes­ter­day told the T&T Guardian she was able to get away "with­out a scratch."They said she had re­layed to them that when she heard the ex­plo­sion she had to run. Dur­ing the melee that en­sued, she dropped her cell­phone and as she turned around, she saw it be­ing tram­pled by the on­rush­ing crowd.

They added she had man­aged to con­tact them us­ing Face­book Mes­sen­ger and told them the sit­u­a­tion was "ut­ter chaos," de­scrib­ing the or­deal as trau­mat­ic.Her rel­a­tives, in re­sponse, con­tact­ed of­fi­cial sources to see how Stew­art could be as­sist­ed.Her rel­a­tives said yes­ter­day: "All is well... she's safe and we are grate­ful to God and every­one who helped."

A Roy­al Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al spokesman in Mi­a­mi told T&T Guardian yes­ter­day the com­pa­ny had four or five ships in the Mediter­ranean area, but had no im­me­di­ate in­for­ma­tion on Stew­art and was check­ing to see to which ship she was go­ing to.

When T&T Guardian called Hon­orary Con­sul Gen­er­al Nus­ret Com­ert in Turkey yes­ter­day, he de­ferred to the For­eign Min­istry's state­ment, de­clin­ing fur­ther com­ment.

Hon­orary Con­sul to Turkey in T&T, Michael LLanos, mean­while, said he would al­so con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor any is­sues with T&T na­tion­als in Turkey, via the Turk­ish am­bas­sador ac­cred­it­ed to T&T, who is based in Cara­cas.

The For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry has asked peo­ple with in­for­ma­tion on na­tion­als who might have been in the af­fect­ed area dur­ing the Turkey at­tack to call the Min­istry, 1-868-623-6894; or Hon­orary Con­sul of T&T to Turkey: +90 532 303 2223.

Yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was hap­py to hear the T&T na­tion­al in Turkey was safe.

How­ev­er, she said the Turkey at­tack had brought the threat of ter­ror­ism clos­er to T&T.


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