Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

More than 260 T&T stu­dents are grap­pling with fear and un­cer­tain­ty as they shel­ter on the UWI Mona cam­pus in Ja­maica as Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa ap­proach­es. Mean­while, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment has been co­or­di­nat­ing re­lief and repa­tri­a­tion ef­forts.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Vice Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stu­dent As­so­ci­a­tion at the Mona cam­pus Jaden Paris, who rep­re­sents the 2025–2026 co­hort, said that stu­dents were ad­vised to move to low­er lev­els for safe­ty.

“All of us were ad­vised to come down­stairs. A form was sent out ear­li­er stat­ing the items we may need, and we filled it out and went down­stairs,” he said. “But it was kind of half ful­filled in terms of the num­ber of items they pro­vid­ed. There is a video, there are pic­tures; we’re still gath­er­ing those.”

Paris said around 300 na­tion­als are strand­ed on the Mona cam­pus, de­scrib­ing the at­mos­phere as tense and emo­tion­al­ly drain­ing. “What’s hap­pen­ing on the ground is hope­less­ness, dis­ap­point­ment, fright,” he said. “We re­al­ly don’t know what to ex­pect be­cause we are Trinidad and To­ba­go stu­dents; we have nev­er had to ex­pe­ri­ence a storm be­fore.”

He con­firmed that the group has been in touch with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Con­sulate in Ja­maica.

“They were the ones who sent the form and pro­vid­ed some items that we may need, but the sit­u­a­tion is that we cur­rent­ly don’t have a High Com­mis­sion­er ap­point­ed; the last one re­tired, and some­one is act­ing in the po­si­tion now,” Paris ex­plained.

Re­spond­ing to the grow­ing con­cern among the stu­dents in Ja­maica, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Guardian Me­dia at the end of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee at the Par­lia­ment that the Gov­ern­ment has been co­or­di­nat­ing re­lief.

“Caribbean Air­lines has been putting out no­tices on so­cial me­dia, and our High Com­mis­sion in Ja­maica has been li­ais­ing with the stu­dents,” she said.

“For those who want­ed to come home, we will bring them home. I think we brought about 100 or over 100 stu­dents back to Trinidad. The oth­ers ap­par­ent­ly took a dif­fer­ent ap­proach; some have re­mained. And now it’s too late. As soon as it’s over, we will try to bring them home if they wish to come,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that while the Gov­ern­ment can­not shield stu­dents from the storm, every ef­fort is be­ing made to en­sure their safe­ty.

“They are li­ais­ing with the stu­dents and mak­ing sure they have sup­plies,” she said. “We may not be able to pro­tect them from the winds and the storm, but cer­tain­ly, we’re en­sur­ing they have what they need to weath­er it.”

Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa is ex­pect­ed to make land­fall soon, and Paris said stu­dents re­main hope­ful that more as­sis­tance will soon ar­rive.

“It’s just im­mense dis­ap­point­ment,” he added. “They cope by laugh­ing and mak­ing jokes, but deep down, it’s a col­lec­tive dis­ap­point­ment.”

Regi­na Del Rosa, a par­ent of one of the stu­dents from Ma­yaro, told Guardian Me­dia she was very ner­vous.

She said the lack of time­ly gov­ern­ment ac­tion has added to her anx­i­ety. “It’s just not enough, in terms of how the oth­er coun­tries re­act­ed ...”

Del Rosa urged the Gov­ern­ment to reach out di­rect­ly to the stu­dents and pro­vide more tan­gi­ble sup­port. “Right now, the gro­cery shelves are bare, and that has been since Thurs­day. When I spoke with my daugh­ter, there was noth­ing from the Gov­ern­ment in place. She went to the gro­cery, and it was al­ready bare. Across the road, there’s an­oth­er gro­cery, but to get to the cap­i­tal would have been crazy, a mad rush. I told her don’t both­er go­ing; it would have been putting her­self in harm’s way.”

She em­pha­sised the need for ac­tive repa­tri­a­tion mea­sures, in­clud­ing char­tered flights to bring stu­dents home safe­ly.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the mea­sures al­ready tak­en by the Gov­ern­ment, she ex­pressed con­tin­ued con­cern as the hur­ri­cane in­ten­si­fies.

'CAL to give pri­or­i­ty to stu­dents wish­ing to re­turn home'

Mean­while, the Min­istries of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion said they co­or­di­nat­ed with Caribbean Air­lines to give pri­or­i­ty to stu­dents wish­ing to re­turn home. Of 268 stu­dents un­der gov­ern­ment pro­grammes, 72 opt­ed to re­turn, while oth­ers chose to re­main in res­i­dence halls, ac­cord­ing to a joint state­ment.

In to­tal, he said, 268 T&T stu­dents are study­ing in Ja­maica un­der gov­ern­ment sup­port pro­grammes—in­clud­ing 69 bur­sary re­cip­i­ents, 5 CAPE stu­dents, 179 un­der GATE, and 15 at UTECH.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, two non-stop Caribbean Air­lines flights from Kingston to Trinidad op­er­at­ed last Fri­day with avail­able seats. It fur­ther said the High Com­mis­sion in Kingston al­so dis­trib­uted food sup­plies to stu­dents across the UWI Mona cam­pus and oth­er in­sti­tu­tions. The Gov­ern­ment said it fur­ther fa­cil­i­tat­ed re­quests from the Gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos to as­sist Bar­ba­di­an na­tion­als on its flights. Na­tion­als were urged to fol­low of­fi­cial ad­vi­sories, re­main in­doors dur­ing the storm, and main­tain con­tact with fam­i­ly and con­sular of­fi­cials as Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa moves through the re­gion.