Flights to evacuate hundreds of Britons from Rhodes amid new fire alerts on Corfu
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.
How the wildfire chaos in Rhodes unfolded – amid new alerts on Corfu
Tour operators Jet2, TUI and Correndon have cancelled flights leaving for Rhodes in 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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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.
Read more:
What rights do holidaymakers have?
Satellite images show smoke from the fires
Evacuation ‘chaos’ amid ‘hotels on fire’
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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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.
Another British family spent a night sleeping on the floor of a school after being evacuated from a wildfire on the Greek island of Rhodes.
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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.
Read more:
Fleeing fires ‘like the end of the world’
Evacuee ‘lost everything’
British family spent night on floor
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Flights from Rhodes land in Manchester
Tourists evacuate from Rhodes
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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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.
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.”
World
Trump criticises Putin after potentially ‘historic’ meeting with Zelenskyy before Pope’s funeral
Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral.
The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be “historic” after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome after the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Follow live updates: 200,000 mourn at Vatican
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no reason” for the Russian president “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days”.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
He added: “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian leaders was their first face-to-face encounter since a very public row in the Oval Office in February.
Mr Zelenskyy said he had a good meeting with Mr Trump in which they talked about the defence of the Ukrainian people, a full and unconditional ceasefire, and a durable and lasting peace that would prevent the war restarting.
Other images released by the Ukrainian president’s office show Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were present for part of the talks, which were described as “positive” by the French presidency.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s spokesman said the meeting lasted for around 15 minutes and he and Mr Trump had agreed to hold further discussions later on Saturday.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Basilica
But the US president left Rome for Washington on Air Force One soon after the funeral without any other talks having taken place.
The Ukrainian president’s office said there was no second meeting in Rome because of the tight schedule of both leaders, although he had separate discussions with Mr Starmer and Mr Macron.
The French president said in a post on X “Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire” and that a so-called coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France, would continue working to achieve a lasting peace.
There was applause from some of the other world leaders in attendance at the Vatican when Mr Zelenskyy walked out of St Peter’s Basilica after stopping in front of the pontiff’s coffin to pay his respects.
Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president met for the first time since their Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
Professor Father Francesco Giordano told Sky News the meeting is being called “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy, adding: “There’s so many things that happened today – it was just overwhelming.”
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Mr Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Mr Trump has claimed a deal to end the war is “very close” and has urged Mr Zelenskyy to “get it done” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
He has previously warned both sides his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides do not agree a deal soon.
Meanwhile, the Polish armed forces said a Russian military helicopter violated its airspace over the Baltic Sea on Friday evening.
“The nature of the incident indicates that Russia is testing the readiness of our air defence systems,” they said in a post on X.
On an extraordinary day, remarkable pictures on the margins that capture what may be a turning point for the world.
In a corner of St Peter’s Basilica before the funeral of Pope Francis, the leaders of America and Ukraine sit facing each other in two solitary chairs.
They look like confessor and sinner except we cannot tell which one is which.
Leaning forward hands together in their laps, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy stare at each other in one photo.
In another, the Ukrainian president seems to be remonstrating with the US president. This is their first encounter since their infamous bust-up in the Oval Office.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
Other pictures show the moment their French and British counterparts introduced the two men. There is a palpable sense of nervousness in the way the leaders engage.
We do not know what the two presidents said in their brief meeting.
But in the mind of the Ukrainian leader will be the knowledge President Trump has this week said America will reward Russia for its unprovoked brutal invasion of his country, under any peace deal.
Mr Trump has presented Ukraine and Russia with a proposal and ultimatum so one-sided it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Kyiv must surrender the land Russia has taken by force, Crimea forever, the rest at least for now. And it must submit to an act of extortion, a proposed deal that would hand over half its mineral wealth effectively to America.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Afterwards, Zelenskyy said it had been a good meeting that could turn out to be historic “if we reach results together”.
They had talked, he said, about the defence of Ukraine, a full and unconditional ceasefire and a durable and lasting peace that will prevent a war restarting.
The Trump peace proposal includes only unspecified security guarantees for Ukraine from countries that do not include the US. It rules out any membership of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies are watching closely to see if Mr Trump will apply any pressure on Vladimir Putin, let alone punish him for recent bloody attacks on Ukraine.
Or will he simply walk away if the proposal fails, blaming Ukrainian intransigence, however outrageously, before moving onto a rapprochement with Moscow.
If he does, America’s role as guarantor of international security will be seen effectively as over.
This could be the week we see the world order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War buried, as well as a pope.
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