Evacuation of Dutch tourists out of St. Maarten started

DEN HAAG – Dutch tourists and family members of Dutch civil servants who are working in St. Maarten were evacuated today. Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced this Sunday during a press conference at the National Crisis Centre in The Hague.

A total 530 Dutch tourists will be evacuated in the coming days. Then priority will be placed on evacuating those persons there on island for work or study.

The evacuations will probably take place by Military or humanitarian flights. St. Maarten’s airport is still not accessible to commercial flights. The Kingdom Police have set up an evacuation point for people who want to leave the island.

Over the last few days only persons with emergencies were evacuated. For example 60 patients who rely on dialysis machines or patients whom just underwent surgery. Also the families of the Dutch defense workers living in St. Maarten were flown to Curaçao.

KLM flight
There was an extra flight from Amsterdam to Curaçao to pick up stranded passengers. Passengers evacuated out of St. Maarten and have a KLM ticket can take the extra flight (KL738) from Curaçao back to Amsterdam.

Source: Caribisch Netwerk | 10 september 2017 | John Samson

Photos by Today photojournalist, Milton Pieters.