Three Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als who were on the cruise ship Cos­ta Favolosa are now said to be strand­ed in Guade­loupe af­ter they were not al­lowed to come home ear­li­er this week with a group of 68 of their com­pa­tri­ots, who are cur­rent­ly go­ing through the COVID-19 quar­an­tine process in Ba­lan­dra.

To­bag­on­ian Karyn Stew­art-Phillip, Michelle Sergeant and Michelle Charles, both of Trinidad, were said to be in high spir­its de­spite their sit­u­a­tion yes­ter­day. They are be­ing tak­en care of by the cruise line but they are yearn­ing for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­turn home.

News com­ing out of Guade­loupe re­vealed that the is­land crossed the epi­dem­ic thresh­old af­ter hav­ing a to­tal of 45 pos­i­tive cas­es up to yes­ter­day. The Cos­ta Favolosa was forced to an­chor off Guade­loupe af­ter be­ing de­nied en­try to Mar­tinique af­ter pas­sen­gers on board test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19, and even­tu­al­ly was al­lowed en­try to Guade­loupe so that pas­sen­gers could re­turn to their home coun­tries.

Two of the Tri­nis who were on board the cruise and left Guade­loupe on Tues­day, be­fore the group of 68 on Wednes­day, al­so test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus on their way home and were im­me­di­ate­ly quar­an­tined at the des­ig­nat­ed hos­pi­tals at ei­ther the Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal or the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Thomas Phillip, the hus­band of Stew­art-Phillip, a reg­is­tered nurse with over 10 years ex­pe­ri­ence, ex­plained that the trio will soon be trans­ferred from Guade­loupe to Ar­genti­na

"My wife is in Guade­loupe, soon to be moved to Ar­genti­na, she and two oth­er per­sons who are Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens. Their cruise end­ed on Tues­day of this week and a group of 68 per­sons from Trinidad were tak­en back to Trinidad and they were left strand­ed. They are strand­ed present­ly in Guade­loupe," Phillip said.

"The cruise lin­er has put them up in a ho­tel, the La Cre­ole Ho­tel and Beach Spa. They were told last night that they would be moved to Ar­genti­na in Buenos Aires at the ex­pense of the cruise line. While they are in Ar­genti­na they will be giv­en fur­ther in­for­ma­tion as to when they will be get­ting a flight back to Trinidad."

Asked why his wife and the oth­er two na­tion­als were not al­lowed to come back as part of the group of 68, Phillip said the 68 peo­ple who re­turned home ear­li­er this week were part of an or­gan­ised cruise tour group and were there­fore giv­en pri­or­i­ty as a group. In fact, Guardian me­dia un­der­stands that oth­er pas­sen­gers who were on the cruise and al­so strand­ed, in­clud­ing Amer­i­cans cit­i­zens, com­plained of feel­ing dis­crim­i­nat­ed against when they tried to ne­go­ti­ate their way on­to the same flight on­ly to be told they could not be ac­com­mo­dat­ed.

"The plane was a char­tered flight and when it was loaded with the 68 per­sons, they (wife and oth­er two Tri­nis) were told that there was no space there to ac­com­mo­date them and be­cause of the bor­der re­stric­tions in var­i­ous Caribbean is­lands, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic had re­fused their flight that would have had to pass through the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic be­fore get­ting to Trinidad and be­cause the bor­ders there is closed," Phillip said.

"They re­mained in Guade­loupe and up to to­day, there has been no flight arrange­ments from Guade­loupe to Trinidad. The op­tion was put for­ward to them to go to Ar­genti­na and maybe a flight would be arranged from there to come to Trinidad." Phillip said the cruise lin­er has been very forth­com­ing with in­for­ma­tion and at­tempts are be­ing made to have them re­turned home, but the glob­al sit­u­a­tion with the spread of the virus was mak­ing it dif­fi­cult.

Phillip said he had at­tempt­ed to con­tact Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young to ap­prise him of the sit­u­a­tion but did not get on to him. Guardian Me­dia al­so un­der­stands that se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers from To­ba­go have al­so passed the in­for­ma­tion on the min­istry.

Guardian me­dia al­so at­tempt­ed to con­tact Young yes­ter­day but he did not an­swer his cell­phone and while he read a What­sapp mes­sage on the is­sue did not re­spond.