International News

MARIGOT, Sept 11, (APP/AFP) – “For pity’s sake,
do something,” Estelle Kalton begs the police. “They’re looting the shops.”
A crime wave on the Franco-Dutch Caribbean holiday island of St Martin,five days after hurricane Irma ripped through, has everyone on edge.
It is only by making a scene on the steps of a makeshift security centre set up in Marigot, the main town on the French side of the island, that Kalton is able to confront officials.
She gets an angry response to her charges of looting. “We know,” a police officer replies.
Minutes earlier, France’s Minister for Overseas Territories Annick Girardin had walked down the same steps after assuring reporters that “there is now security” on the island.
But officials and people in the streets seem to have different definitions of “security” and criticism of the state’s response to the disaster is mounting on the island and in Paris.
“Police saw people trying to loot our store,” says Kalton’s 57-year-old husband Philippe.
“Sometimes they’re just 50 metres away, but they don’t do anything.
“They told me that people’s security is the priority and that the rest is only material, that it’s not important.”
The shopkeeper moved to St Martin seven years ago. Before Irma, he and his wife enjoyed a sun-soaked life in a villa by the turquoise waters of Nettle Bay.
What remains of their house, metres from the beach, is visible from the steps of the security centre. Like the others, it is a wreck.
Now, the two clothing shops the couple ran on Liberty Street are “all we have left”.