US President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday April 2 that Canadian and British passengers on the liner Zaandam, which is carrying four dead people and people with symptoms of coronavirus, will soon be evacuated.
"Canada has been notified to repatriate passengers from the ships that will dock " in Port Everglades, Florida, said Trump, adding that the same message had been sent to the United Kingdom. Donald Trump said the United States "is sending medical personnel to the ship ."
Read also: The owner of the ship Zaandam fears more dead if he can not dock in Florida
Florida Governor Ron De Santis has so far refused to accommodate the Zaandam and another ship, but said on Wednesday that he was finally willing to do so. The ship crossed the Panama Canal this weekend and is scheduled to arrive off Florida on Thursday.
His arrival is scheduled in Fort Lauderdale around Thursday noon. A Broward County commission must decide in the morning whether to allow docking or not. " The county is working on a project to allow the Floridians to return to safety and to expatriate foreign nationals so that they do not mix with our community, " the governor told Fox News.
Cruise company Holland America, which operates the two vessels, said in a statement Wednesday " waiting for confirmation " from local authorities to disembark passengers.
Read also: Zaandam liner: death of four passengers
On Tuesday, Orlando Ashford, its president, said he feared that the balance on board his boats would increase if they were not allowed to dock in Florida. According to him, there are 1,243 passengers, including 305 Americans and 257 Canadians, and 1,247 crew members on the two ships. Several Latin American ports have denied them assistance. " We just want to go home ," said Rotterdam passenger Rick De Pinho, AFP. "The more time people spend here, the more likely they are to get sick, " he said.
The Zaandam left Buenos Aires on March 7 with around 1800 people of several nationalities on board, bound for Chile. The Florida governor also on Wednesday ordered the confinement of the 21 million inhabitants of this American state, to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Florida, where the ship should dock, and the third US state in terms of inhabitants, is the place of residence of many elderly people, a population particularly at risk from the Covid-19.
