The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has con­demned the rob­bery and sex­u­al as­sault of two fe­male British tourists on Mon­day.

In a press re­lease on Tues­day, THA Chief Sec­re­tary Kelvin Charles ex­pressed con­do­lences to the vic­tims and their fam­i­lies as he ex­pressed dis­plea­sure over the most re­cent at­tack on tourists vis­it­ing the is­land.

“I am deeply sad­dened as well as an­noyed by these at­tacks, Hav­ing re­cent­ly re­turned from a mis­sion trip to Ger­many to pro­mote To­ba­go’s tourism prod­uct, it is se­ri­ous­ly dis­heart­en­ing to re­turn to this dis­taste­ful news,” Charles said.

The state­ment called on res­i­dents of To­ba­go to vig­i­lant and aware of their sur­round­ings. It al­so called on peo­ple to take per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in the fight against crime and the pro­mo­tion of the is­land’s tourism in­dus­try.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the at­tack took place at Grafton Beach, Black Rock, around 1.30 am, on Mon­day.

They were re­port­ed­ly walk­ing on the beach when they were at­tacked by an armed man.

Short­ly af­ter they re­port­ed the in­ci­dent to po­lice, a team of de­tec­tives led by Sgt Pig­gott ar­rest­ed a 34-year-old sus­pect from Young Street, Canaan. The sus­pect re­mained in po­lice cus­tody up to late yes­ter­day and is ex­pect­ed to be charged when po­lice com­plete their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The at­tack came hours be­fore the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) opened the new Shir­van Road Po­lice Sta­tion. The sta­tion, lo­cat­ed rel­a­tive­ly near to the pop­u­lar beach where the at­tack oc­curred, is ex­pect­ed to house sev­er­al spe­cial­ist polic­ing units in­clud­ing the new­ly-formed Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol (ERP).

The at­tack is just one of sev­er­al in­ci­dents against tourists, this year.

On Feb­ru­ary 4, Rod­er­ick Mac Mullin, 63, and his 65-year-old wife Neena, of New Brunswick, Cana­da, were sun­bathing on Grafton Beach when they were beat­en and robbed of a small quan­ti­ty of cash, a cell­phone and two cred­it cards. Two men were held for that at­tack.

Three days lat­er, Mark Peth­er­ick, 66, and his wife Rose­mary were robbed of TT$101, US $60 and a cam­era, while walk­ing on a beach in Arnos Vale.

In a trav­el ad­vi­so­ry is­sued on Feb­ru­ary 25, which is still ac­tive, the Unit­ed King­dom ad­vised its cit­i­zens to be cau­tious when vis­it­ing T&T dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son.

“Most vis­its to To­ba­go are trou­ble-free, but there have been two re­cent in­ci­dents in­volv­ing tourists (in­clud­ing British na­tion­als) be­ing robbed. In­ci­dents of vi­o­lent crime in To­ba­go are rare. The in­abil­i­ty of the au­thor­i­ties to catch and pros­e­cute of­fend­ers re­mains a con­cern,” the ad­vi­so­ry stat­ed.