France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has announced he will visit the hurricane-damaged French territories in the Caribbean as the UK government defended its response to the storm, reports The Guardian.
Macron said he would visit St Martin and announced a doubling of military and police forces to bolster security in the region.
There have been a number of arrests and witnesses in the French island territory have reported looting and violence after the storm that left 60% of homes in St Martin uninhabitable, and killed at least 11 people in St Martin and St Barthélemy (St Barts), both French territories.
Mark Rutte, the prime minister of the Netherlands, said the number of military personnel had been doubled on the Dutch side of the island, St Maarten. Rutte said that to ensure order, security forces were authorised to act with a “firm hand”.
Dutch authorities were evacuating tourists and the injured to Curaçao, where the Dutch king, Willem-Alexander, and the interior minister, Ronald Plasterk, were expected to arrive on Monday.
The British prime minister, Theresa May, has yet to say if she will visit Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands, which were also devastated by the storm.
The British government has faced criticism by residents and visitors in the area who have described “unbelievable” devastation. It has been accused of being slow to evacuate people before the storm.
The premier of the British Virgin Islands, Orlando Smith, has called for greater support from the British government after Irma’s destructive force left the islands in a “critical” state and killed at least five people.
“We are a resilient people but this has shaken us to our core,” he said.