RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers says Trinidad and To­ba­go is ready to as­sist its stu­dents in Ja­maica as Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa ap­proach­es and even af­ter it de­parts, de­spite claims that the Gov­ern­ment failed to bring stu­dents home on time.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Sobers said the min­istry had arranged trans­port and re­lief for the 268 reg­is­tered T&T stu­dents in Ja­maica.

But stu­dents stuck in Ja­maica, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, told Guardian Me­dia they felt hope­less even as a char­tered flight car­ry­ing 27 stu­dents from oth­er Caribbean na­tions de­part­ed from Kingston on Sat­ur­day evening, bound for Turks and Caicos, fol­lowed by an­oth­er flight bound for St Kitts, which left on Sun­day.

A par­ent of a stu­dent de­scribed the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse as slow and poor­ly co­or­di­nat­ed. The par­ent said, “The Trinida­di­ans, they left them be­hind. My daugh­ter told me they got an email, and there is a flight out of Ja­maica. How do you ex­pect them to fit al­most 300 peo­ple on a flight?”

A stu­dent, who con­tact­ed Guardian Me­dia via email, said Gov­ern­ment-fund­ed stu­dents re­ceived an email ask­ing if they want­ed to re­turn home. The next morn­ing, they re­ceived a fol­low-up mes­sage ad­vis­ing them to “pre­pare and shel­ter in place,” list­ing flights but pro­vid­ing no book­ing de­tails or work­ing con­tact num­ber. Some stu­dents said they had to buy their own tick­ets, one pay­ing US$512, while oth­ers re­turned to cam­pus. Those there re­ceived tinned food and ba­sic sup­plies from the Trinidad and To­ba­go High Com­mis­sion but said it was bare­ly enough.

Min­is­ter Sobers, how­ev­er, said the false in­for­ma­tion was caus­ing pain to hard­work­ing staff who had been li­ais­ing tire­less­ly with Ja­maican au­thor­i­ties to bring the stu­dents home. He added that the Gov­ern­ment will al­so bring home stu­dents af­ter the pas­sage of the hur­ri­cane if need­ed.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go stands ready to as­sist our na­tion­als and the Ja­maican gov­ern­ment,” Sobers said. “We are con­fi­dent in the Ja­maican gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion thus far. Just like any­thing not man-made, you can nev­er re­al­ly be too pre­pared. It is an un­pre­dictable sit­u­a­tion, and we re­it­er­ate our po­si­tion that Trinidad and To­ba­go stands ready to as­sist if called up­on,” he said.

With claims and coun­ter­claims from stu­dents about the time they re­ceived the email alert­ing them to the Caribbean Air­lines flights to T&T — some say­ing they re­ceived the email mere hours be­fore the flight was set to de­part — Sobers ex­plained the time­line of Gov­ern­ment ac­tions. He said min­istries co­or­di­nat­ed since Oc­to­ber 21 to con­tact stu­dents and com­pile re­spons­es. Of the 268 stu­dents in Ja­maica, 72 re­quest­ed repa­tri­a­tion, 13 de­clined, and 183 did not re­spond. Pri­or­i­ty was giv­en to T&T stu­dents on two ex­tra flights arranged with Caribbean Air­lines for Oc­to­ber 24, each with 160 avail­able seats.

Sobers said stu­dents who re­mained in Ja­maica re­ceived sup­plies from the High Com­mis­sion.

“We have been pro­vid­ing stu­dents with pro­vi­sions,” he said. “We want to be ready to pro­vide nec­es­sary items to stu­dents who re­main on cam­pus. We con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and pro­vide as­sis­tance as re­quired.”

He al­so ad­dressed claims that flights were not dis­count­ed or co­or­di­nat­ed.

“There would have been two emails sent on Oc­to­ber 23 in­form­ing stu­dents of dis­count­ed fig­ures,” Sobers said.

“At that point, on­ly 72 stu­dents re­quest­ed to re­turn. We could not know if send­ing free flights would have reached more stu­dents, but dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of flights af­ter the hur­ri­cane has passed.”

Mean­while, Sobers said T&T re­mains open to as­sist­ing oth­er Caribbean na­tions if re­quest­ed.

“Any sug­ges­tion that we did not as­sist Caribbean na­tions is false,” he said. “We re­main ready to pro­vide sup­port if need­ed.”

Ja­maican au­thor­i­ties have urged all stu­dents to stay in­doors un­til Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa pass­es.