By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

MORE than a week after refusing to return home to begin clean-up efforts, those remaining Acklins evacuees still in the Nassau were sent back following a tense ten-day period at the Sir Kendal Isaacs Gym.

Most visibly frustrated, 84 of the 92 remaining evacuees boarded flights to an island many referred to as problematic.

“I going home, no place better than home,” one evacuee told The Tribune when asked for comment about finally returning to Acklins following the passage of Hurricane Irma more than two weeks ago.

The evacuee, who did not want to be named, added: “They made us look like the problem, home never did me nothing wrong. I going home.”

He was referring to circumstances that led to many of the evacuees being relocated from the New Providence Community Centre (NPCC) to the gym earlier this month.

The NPCC had initially committed itself to acting as a shelter for residents for a specified period of time. Once that time-frame expired, residents still being housed at the shelter refused to leave but were later moved to the gym.

Once at the gym, some of the residents took issues with conditions there.

The majority of those still being housed at the shelter were from Salina Point, Acklins.

The ordeal led Jeffery Forbes, one of his island’s oldest living residents, to urge evacuees to come home and do their part to clean up the island post hurricane.

However, many of those evacuated shrugged off the comments and maintained that Salina Point was uninhabitable.

On Monday, Island Administrator Chrisfield Johns, present at the airport to see evacuees off, insisted the government, through his office, has done all it could do to “clean up” the island.

Mr Johns, assisted by both the island’s chief councillor and deputy chief councillor on Monday, said the only way things could be completely restored would be for residents to return home.

“The focus that the government has given me was to clean up Salina Point, to make that community, to put it back in a state of readiness so when the people returned, at least the children would be safe in that community,” he said. “Today is the day when the remaining settlements are going to be ready to receive them.”

Mr Johns said he was aware that some residents were not happy to be returning home so soon, but called it “essential” for them to do so.

He stressed: “I believe that some of them are happy to go back because they realise that in order for them to protect their home, in order to ensure that their yards are cleaned, to make sure that the necessary repairs that are essential to putting their house back in order, they have to be there to oversee that.”

Mr Johns later added: “The government is prepared to take whatever action necessary to make them as comfortable as possible with respect to transitioning them to a place where they can have a place to stay, have something to eat, give them all the basic amenities available to them while this transitional phase is taking place.

“I believe many of them want to go back, there may be a few who are resistant to that, but the fact remains that there are a lot of people in Acklins right now who welcome them back and believe that this is where they should be.”

Deputy Chief Councillor Marvin Campbell, for his part, insisted the island was in a position to receive returning residents this week.

He said he, along with general workers on the island, have worked tirelessly to ensure that the island was properly cleaned.

“We checked all the graveyard sites, we checked the seashores for fallen debris and stuff like that. We also checked wells and stuff,” he said.

Mr Campbell added: “We have gone through 75 per cent, and I am happy that the government is working with us to get it together and hopefully, in a short order, it will be back perfect.”