European Tour Operators cancel Trips to Tunisia

Tour operators from across Europe are evacuating their customers from Tunisia and cancelling travels to the country following the terror attack at a beach resort that left 39 people dead Friday.

British travel companies Thomson and First Choice say thousands of tourists are being flown back home from Tunisia Saturday and they are cancelling all flights to Tunisia in the coming week. Britain’s largest travel association, ABTA, says it estimates that some 20,000 British tourists are currently on holiday in Tunisia.

Major tour operators in Denmark, Sweden and Norway said they have stopped all travels to Tunisia for the rest of the season although the Scandinavian foreign ministries have warned its citizens to be vigilant and not advised them against travelling there.

A spokesman for the Slovak Foreign Ministry, Peter Stano, said Slovakia is sending a passenger jet to Tunisia for about 150 of some 600 Slovak tourists who are currently in Tunisia and who wish to return home after the attack.

At Tunisia’s Hammamet airport tourists were lining up to leave the country after the terror attack in the beach resort town Sousse that left 39 people dead.

Even those who weren’t staying in Sousse as visitors said they cut their vacations short out of fear.

Kathrin Schneider, a German tourist, said she stayed some 40-50 kilometers (25-30 miles) from Sousse and had felt safe during the whole holiday.

“But as soon as we heard, we were quite happy to leave because you don’t feel that safe anymore if something happens like that,” she said. “They can come to the beach where we stayed as well so we were happy to leave.”

“A lot of people in our hotel left today,” she added.

She said many had families and “if you have kids to look after, it’s probably better to leave.”

The government of Ireland has confirmed that an Irish nurse has been killed in the terrorist attack on tourists in Tunisia.

Relatives and family friends say Lorna Carty was fatally shot as she sunbathed. She and her husband, Declan, had received the holiday as a present to help Declan Carty relax following his recent heart surgery. Family friends speaking to the couple’s two children say Lorna Carty went ahead of her husband to the beach, where she suffered fatal gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead in hospital.

The couple, both aged in their 50s, lived in the village of Robinstown northwest of Dublin where the Cartys run a dairy farm. She worked as a nurse in a local private clinic. At the time of Friday’s attacks, their 18-year-old daughter was holidaying with friends in Turkey while their 21-year-old son was home minding the farm.

Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan says Ireland’s diplomat responsible for Tunisia, Ambassador to Spain David Cooney, was arriving Saturday in Tunisia to help determine whether other Irish nationals were wounded or killed in Friday’s attack.

Tourist flights from Ireland to Tunisia have continued in the wake of the attack, but travel agents are offering full refunds for those canceling. A flight Friday night to the Tunisian city of Monastir, another coastal tourism center south of Friday’s attack, left Dublin after a three-hour delay with about 110 of the booked 170 passengers aboard.

The head of the Imperial Marhaba Hotel says everyone is being vacated from the hotel that was at the center of the attack at a Tunisian beach resort that left 39 people dead.

Mohammed Becheur said Saturday that before the attack, 75 percent of the hotel’s 370 rooms were booked, one of the highest occupancy rates in the resort city of Sousse.

“We may have zero clients today, but we will keep our staff,” he said outside the hotel a day after the rampage by a lone gunman. “This summer will be hard but we are confident for the long term.”

The beach area behind the hotel is blocked off and being patrolled by plainclothes men with guns. The chaise lounges and straw umbrellas are all carefully in place. Three Germans laid flowers on an overturned beach chair.

Employees at the nearby Mouradia Palace hotel expressed fear that they would soon be out of jobs as the attack comes right at the start of high season.

Belgian tourist Clause Besser has described from his hospital bed how he heard gunshots on the beach in a Tunisian resort town and tried to flee as a gunman killed at least 39 people.

Besser recounted early Saturday how he took a bullet as he ran away from the shooter at the beach in Sousse.

“It’s really sad but what can you do, for everyone, for the tourists, for the people who died, for their families,” he said.

“For me, somehow, with a bullet in the leg, it’s not a catastrophe. For those who died or injured for life, it’s something else,” he added.

Tunisia’s Prime Minister Habib Essid has identified the shooter, who was killed by police after the attack, as Seifeddine Rezgui. According to the SITE intelligence group, the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Tunisia’s prime minister says an initial investigation shows the gunman who killed at least 39 people at a beach resort was from a village in a poor central region of Tunisia and had never traveled abroad.

Habib Essid said Seifeddine Rezgui, who was killed by police after the attack Friday in Sousse, was not previously known by authorities. He said he came from the town of Gaafour in the governorate of Siliana and had been a student at Kairouan university.

The Islamic State group has claimed credit for the attack, identifying the gunman by his jihadi pseudonym Abu Yahya al-Qayrawani, the SITE Intelligence Group has reported.

The attack was one of three from Europe to North Africa to the Middle East that followed a call to violence by IS extremists.

According to the prime minister, the victims included many Britons, as well as Germans, Belgian and French.

The morning after a lone gunman killed at least 39 people at a beach resort in Tunisia, busloads of tourists are heading to the nearby Enfidha-Hammamet airport hoping to return to their home countries.

The attack in the Tunisian resort of Sousse was the worst ever in the country and came just months after the March 18 massacre at the national Bardo museum in Tunis that left 22 people dead, again mostly tourists. It is expected to deal a heavy blow to the country’s tourism industry, which accounts for nearly 15 percent if Tunisia’s gross domestic product.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said a high proportion of the casualties is likely to be British and U.K. tour operator Thomas Cook was among the travel agents that started evacuating its customers from Tunisia Saturday.

It said on Twitter it has arranged an additional plane to depart from Tunisia to fly home anyone wishing to leave.

Source: The Associated Press