The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go says 85 stu­dents re­spond­ed to an email sent on Thurs­day, more than 12 hours be­fore two sched­uled flights from Ja­maica, of­fer­ing dis­count­ed trav­el to T&T as Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa neared land­fall. The Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com says there are 268 stu­dents cur­rent­ly reg­is­tered in Ja­maica.

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Sean Sobers, at a news con­fer­ence held this af­ter­noon on the mat­ter, said the Gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed ad­di­tion­al fund­ing to en­sure food sup­plies were avail­able for stu­dents who re­mained on the is­land. More than 140 sup­plies have been dis­trib­uted. He said the op­er­a­tion to sup­port stu­dents is on­go­ing.

Yes­ter­day, com­plaints be­gan to sur­face from par­ents and T&T stu­dents in Ja­maica about an al­leged lack of re­sponse from the Gov­ern­ment as the storm ap­proached.

How­ev­er, Sobers said two ad­di­tion­al flights were ap­proved through spe­cial dis­pen­sa­tion to fa­cil­i­tate na­tion­als in Ja­maica. He said there were 320 seats avail­able, and while there was a cost at­tached to trav­el, fee waivers and dis­counts were arranged.

Sobers said, “We un­der­stand some stu­dents would not have been able to af­ford the flights, so we en­sured the High Com­mis­sion in Ja­maica had suf­fi­cient fund­ing for those who re­mained.”

Head of Chancery Aman­da Fras­er, the min­is­ter said, has been work­ing with stu­dents on the ground. Min­is­ter Sobers said she was af­fect­ed af­ter see­ing a video cir­cu­lat­ing on­line of stu­dents com­plain­ing of the treat­ment met­ed out to them, not­ing that she has been ac­tive­ly as­sist­ing with pro­vi­sions.

He added, “A lot of par­ents are say­ing and be­liev­ing that their chil­dren are not be­ing treat­ed fair­ly, and it is not true.”

Dis­cus­sions, Sober said, are on­go­ing re­gard­ing a pos­si­ble air­craft to ex­tract na­tion­als fol­low­ing Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa.