UPDATE: Britons evacuated from Kenya beach resorts
British tourists are being evacuated on from Kenya’s coastal resorts after the British Foreign Office warned them to leave because of threats to their safety from local terrorist groups.
Thomson and First Choice are flying guests home on special charter flights from Mombasa airport this week, having told them they must cut short their holidays due to a change in the FCO safety advice on Wednesday.
The operators have cancelled future holidays to Mombasa until at least October.
Around 250 people are believed to have been flown home from Mombasa yesterday and a further 250 are due to fly home today.
Kuoni had two customers in Mombasa, who are also being flown home today.
They are being taken from their hotels to Mombasa’s international airport in convoys of coaches under armed guard, said the Daily Telegraph, as a road connecting resorts south of Mombasa goes through the city centre, which the Foreign Office says is no longer safe.
The FCO updated its travel advice for Kenya on Wednesday, warning that tourists should not travel to Mombasa Island or to popular beaches to its north because of the threat of terrorism, and those already there should leave immediately.
A spokesman for TUI Travelconfirmed it had evacuated all its customers from Kenya "as a precaution", including those whose accommodation was outside the Foreign Office’s alert zone.
"Thomson and First Choice have been continuously monitoring the situation as it developed and have been working very closely with the FCO and follow its advice at all times," she said.
"As a result of the change in FCO advice, the decision has been taken to cancel all our outbound flights to Mombasa, Kenya up to and including 31 October. As a precautionary measure, we have also taken the decision to repatriate all customers currently on holiday in Kenya back to the UK."
She said resort reps were updating customers currently on holiday. Thomson Airways customers with flight-ony bookings are asked to ring the resort office in Kenya on +254 (0) 716979338 or its 24-hour holiday line +44 2476 282228.
Kuoni said it was cancelling all holidays to the Kenya coast for the time being as the road from the airport goes through the exclusion zone.
It said customers due to travel to the Kenyan coast within the next 14 days will be able to cancel free of charge or switch to an alternative holiday. This will continue on a rolling basis until the FCO amends its travel advice.
Kuoni said customers travelling on safari or staying in a lodge and whose itineraries don’t include Mombasa will be able to continue their holidays as normal.
Kenya’s government called the new FCO travel advisory "an unfriendly act" that "plays to the whims" of terrorists by "causing fear and panic".
The Foreign Office update follows two recent explosions in Mombasa, which killed three people and wounded several more. One of the blasts was in a beach bar near the Nayali Reef Hotel, although no one was hurt in this attack. Kenya blames the attacks on the al Qaeda-linked Somali group al Shabaab.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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