Flights have been arranged to get hundreds of Britons out of Rhodes, as thousands continue to flee wildfires on the Greek island – and new evacuations were announced on Corfu.
Tourists and residents huddled in schools and shelters on Sunday in Rhodes, with many evacuated on private boats from beaches as flames menaced resorts and coastal villages.
Scores of others were forced to spend the weekend sleeping rough, on beaches, pool sun loungers or on the streets.
A total of approximately 19,000 people have been rescued from the island, in one of the largest evacuations in Greek history.
Greece’s Emergency Communications Service has also now published evacuation orders for some areas of Corfu after wildfires were also reported there.
People in the areas of Santa, Megoula, Porta, Palia, Perithia and Sinies on the island have been told to leave on Sunday evening.
Tour operators Jet2, TUI and Correndon have cancelled flights leaving for Rhodesin the next few days.
Travel agent Thomas Cook cancelled some upcoming holidays and is offering other customers full refunds should they wish to cancel their trips.
While Easyjet has said it is laying on two repatriation flights from the island on Monday, in addition to the nine flights they already operate between the Rhodes and the UK – providing 421 extra seats to get people out.
The airline also pledged to run another repatriation flight back to the UK on Tuesday and promised to keep the situation under review.
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1:48
Why is Rhodes on fire?
No rain forecast after historic evacuation
The flames have left trees black and skeletal and the roads around the island littered with dead animals and near burnt-out cars.
Six people were briefly treated at a hospital for respiratory problems.
A person who fell and broke a leg during a hotel evacuation and a pregnant woman were taken to hospital. The pregnant woman is in good condition, authorities said.
Temperatures are expected to drop below 40C on the island tomorrow but remain in the high 30s.
There is no rain forecast in the next week.
The fire brigade said 19,000 people were moved from homes and hotels, calling it the biggest safe transport of residents and tourists Greece has ever carried out.
Speaking to Sky News at Rhodes Airport, tourist Tom Mitchell recounted how he and his friend Natalie Taylor were evacuated from their hotel.
He said: “We were at the hotel yesterday and there was lots of smoke. It got to one o’clock this morning and we had an evacuation notice come through on our phones to leave.
“It just felt like chaos really.”
Eventually, a coach arrived and took them to a school in the city.
He praised the locals for all the help offered to stranded tourists as he and Ms Taylor sat in the airport, waiting for their flight home.
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1:01
Tourists are ‘furious’ as they take shelter in Rhodes
Another tourist, Kevin Evans, said his wife and three young children – including a six-month-old baby – were evacuated twice on Saturday as the fire rapidly spread.
The family is now stranded in Rhodes Town without accommodation and “no information from the authorities”.
“We were originally in Kiotari in a villa but were moved to Gennadi,” he said.
“It got very crowded but we managed to get into a hotel in Gennadi with a room for the children and mums, while the rest of us slept in the lobby.
“As night fell, we could see the fire on the top of the hills in Kiotari.
“They said all the hotels were on fire.”
At about midnight, the fire started moving to their side of the hill, Mr Evans said, and alerts were going off again.
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3:18
Schools are housing evacuated tourists
‘Island is functioning very well’
Coastguard vessels and private boats carried more than 3,000 tourists from beaches on Saturday after the wildfires, which have burned for nearly a week, rekindled in the southeast of Rhodes.
Other parts of Greece’s third most populated island were not affected.
Olga Kefalogianni, Greece’s tourism minister, told Sky News “overall, the island is functioning very well”.
He praised locals for showing “solidarity” with tourists affected by the fires.
Nevertheless, areas popular with many tourists were badly hit.
Many people fled hotels when huge flames reached the seaside villages of Kiotari, Gennadi, Pefki, Lindos, Lardos and Kalathos.
Crowds gathered in streets under an orange sky while smoke hung in the air.
In Lindos, famed for an acropolis on a massive rock within medieval walls, a blaze charred the hillside and buildings.
Thanasis Virinis, a vice mayor of Rhodes, told Mega television on Sunday that between 4,000 and 5,000 people were in temporary accommodation, calling for donations of essentials such as mattresses and bedclothes.
Among the nationalities of tourists affected on Rhodes were French, Dutch and Germans, as well as Britons.
One hotelier said the island can receive 150,000 visitors at a time in peak season. The resident population of the island is around 125,000.
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3:27
Flights from Rhodes land in Manchester
Foreign Office Rapid Deployment Team sent to the island
As crowds filled Rhodes airport, the Greek foreign ministry said it was setting up a helpdesk for people who had lost travel documents.
Tour operator Jet2 said five planes due to take more tourists to the island would instead fly empty and take people home on their scheduled flights.
Air France-KLM said its daily flight from Rhodes was operating as normal.
Ryanair said its flights to and from the island were unaffected by the fire.
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1:11
Locals in Rhodes have seen their homes destroyed by wildfires
TUI said it cancelled all outbound flights to Rhodes up to and including Tuesday. “Customers currently in Rhodes will return on their intended flight home,” it said in a statement.
More than 250 firefighters, assisted by 18 aircraft, set up firebreaks to shield a dense forest and more residential areas.
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A UK government spokesperson said: “We are actively monitoring the fires in Rhodes and are in close contact with local authorities.
“The FCDO has deployed a Rapid Deployment Team (RDT) of five FCDO staff and four British Red Cross responders to Rhodes to support British Nationals, whose safety is our top priority.
“They will be based at Rhodes International Airport to assist with travel documents and liaise with Greek authorities and travel operators on the ground.
“British nationals in Rhodes should contact their travel operator in the first instance for any queries regarding the rescheduling of flights and continue to check our updated gov.uk travel advice for information.”
Two missing sisters in Aberdeen made an earlier visit to the bridge where they were last seen hours before they disappeared, CCTV footage has revealed.
Police Scotland said a text message was also sent to the women’s landlady on the morning they vanished, indicating they would not be returning to the flat.
Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both aged 32, were last spotted in the city’s Market Street at Victoria Bridge at about 2.12am on Tuesday 7 January.
The siblings – who are part of a set of triplets and originally from Hungary – were seen crossing the bridge and turning right on to a footpath next to the River Dee in the direction of Aberdeen Boat Club.
In an update on Friday, Police Scotland said the sisters were seen at the same bridge at around 2.50pm on Monday 6 January – around 12 hours before they were last seen.
The force said the siblings, who were both wearing rucksacks, spent five minutes at the footpath and the Victoria Bridge but did not engage with anyone else.
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Officers are now appealing for anyone who may have seen the sisters at this earlier time to come forward.
After visiting the bridge, the women were then seen on CCTV making their way through the city centre, via Union Square shopping centre, back to their flat in the Charlotte Street area.
Police Scotland said there is “nothing to indicate” that the siblings left their flat again until shortly before they were last seen at the River Dee in the early hours of the following morning.
A text message was sent from Henrietta’s mobile phone to their landlady at the same time they were last seen, indicating they would not be returning to the flat.
The phone was then disconnected from the network and has not been active since.
The following day, the sisters’ personal belongings were found inside in the flat and the landlady reported her concerns to police.
Superintendent David Howieson said: “We have carried out a significant trawl of public and private CCTV footage as we try to establish the sisters’ movements.
“We have had a positive response from the public to our appeals and I would like to thank everyone who has already come forward.
“I would again urge anyone with any information which could help find Eliza and Henrietta to get in touch.
“We remain in regular contact with Eliza and Henrietta’s family in Hungary and we will continue to provide them with support at this very difficult time.
“Searches will continue in the coming days and our officers will continue to do everything they can to find Eliza and Henrietta.”
The search team has included specialist advisers, emergency service partners, a police helicopter, and the force’s dog branch and marine unit.
Police Scotland previously said there has been “no evidence” of the missing sisters leaving the immediate area.
Officers are keeping an open mind about what happened to the women but said they have not found anything to suggest any “suspicious circumstances or criminality”.
It previously emerged the sisters did not tell their relatives they were “immediately” going to move out of their rented flat.
The man who served 14 years in jail for the murder of schoolboy Jimmy Mizen has been recalled to prison for breaching his licence conditions.
It follows reporting in The Sun newspaper that Jake Fahri, 35, was a drill rapper releasing music under the name TEN, who conceals his identity with a balaclava, and was played on BBC 1Xtra.
A Probation Service spokesperson said: “Our thoughts are with Jimmy Mizen’s family who deserve better than to see their son’s murderer shamelessly boasting about his violent crime.”
Jimmy’s father Barry told Sky News: “We’re not gloating or anything, in a way it’s quite sad.”
His son bled to death after Fahri threw an oven dish at him in a south London bakery on 10 May 2008.
The dish shattered on his chin and severed an artery in the schoolboy’s neck.
Fahri was 19 when he was given a life sentence in 2009 with a minimum term of 14 years and was released on licence in June 2023.
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His music was played on BBC 1Xtra less than 18 months later, the Sun reported, adding that DJ Theo Johnson named him an “up-and-coming star”.
Jimmy’s father earlier said he and his wife Margaret were “stunned into silence” when they were told about Fahri’s music, which often features violent themes.
In one song, which appears to reference Jimmy’s death, he raps about “sharpening” a blade.
“Judge took a look at me, before the trial even started he already knows he’s gonna throw the book at me,” the lyrics say.
Another track includes the lines: “See a man’s soul fly from his eyes and his breath gone… I wanted more, it made it less wrong. Seeing blood spilled same floor he was left on.”
The BBC has said the artist’s tracks do not feature on any BBC playlists, and that a track which appeared to reference Jimmy’s death had never been played on its channels.
A spokesman for the broadcaster added there were “no further plans to play his music”, adding: “We were not aware of his background and we in no way condone his actions.”
A Probation Service spokesperson said: “All offenders released on licence are subject to strict conditions. As this case shows, we will recall them to prison if they break the rules.”
Jimmy’s parents founded the Mizen Foundation after their son’s death. The charity helps young people in London who are escaping violence.
Mr Mizen said: “It appears that if he’s been recalled to prison, he must’ve breached his licence conditions
The man suspected of abducting Madeleine McCann won’t face any charges in the foreseeable future, a prosecutor has told Sky News.
German drifter Christian B, who cannot be fully identified under his country’s privacy law, is expected to be freed from an unrelated jail sentence this year while police in three countries continue to search for evidence against him.
Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said: “There is currently no prospect of an indictment in the Maddie case.
“As things stand, the accused Christian B’s imprisonment will end in early September.”
Madeleine, aged three, was asleep with her younger twin siblings in the family’s Portuguese rented holiday apartment before mother Kate discovered her missing at around 10pm on 3 May, 2007.
Her parents were dining nearby on the complex with friends and taking turns to check on all their sleeping children every half an hour.
Madeleine’s disappearance has become the world’s most mysterious missing child case.
Philipp Marquort, one of Christian B’s defence lawyers, welcomed the prosecutor’s pessimism about bringing charges.
He said: “This confirms the suspicions that we have repeatedly expressed, namely that there is no reliable evidence against our client.
“We regret that we have not yet been granted access to the investigation files. We have not yet been able to effectively counter the public prejudice arising from statements made by the prosecutor’s office.”
Christian B, 47, is in jail and coming to the end of his sentence for the rape of an elderly American woman in Praia da Luz, the Portuguese resort where Madeleine disappeared.
In October, he was acquitted on a series of rape and indecent assault charges after a non-jury trial in Germany, in which several references were made to his status as the main suspect in the Madeleine case.
The prosecutor said he was awaiting the court’s written judgment before launching an appeal against the acquittal. He believes the trial judges were biased against the prosecution.
If successful, he could apply for a new arrest warrant for Christian B to keep him in custody until a retrial with new judges.
He said: “We hope that the Federal Court of Justice will decide before the end of the accused’s imprisonment. If the Federal Court follows our legal opinion, we could apply for a new arrest warrant for the accused’s offences, so that the accused would then remain in custody beyond September 2025.
Mr Marquort said the defence team would oppose the prosecution’s appeal against the acquittal.
Prosecutor Mr Wolters has said in the past that he believes Madeleine is dead and that Christian B was responsible for her death. The suspect denies any involvement.
The case against Christian B is purely circumstantial; he’s alleged to have confessed to a friend that he abducted Madeleine, he has convictions for sex crimes against children, he was living in the area at the time, his mobile phone was close by when the young girl vanished and he re-registered one of his vehicles the next day.
The prosecutor won’t say what evidence he has to convince him Madeleine is dead, but he admitted he is still trying to find forensic evidence to link Christian B to the girl.
Jim Gamble, former head of the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre, said he had expected the prosecutor to charge Christian B soon.
“He’s implied the whole way through that he has something more than the public are aware of,” he said.
“He’s made fairly definitive statements about whether Madeleine is alive or dead so you would expect their strategy to have been to charge him sooner rather than later.
“From what he’s said today I wonder if we’re witnessing the re-positioning of something to manage the disappointment that’ll come.”
Mr Wolters, who is based in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, is investigating the case with the help of Portuguese police and detectives from Scotland Yard.