Families of Britons still missing three days after the terrorist massacre in Tunisia have expressed anguish at the ongoing wait for news about whether their loved ones have survived.
Six families are still thought to be awaiting news of missing relatives. David Cameron, the prime minister, has defended the Foreign Office against criticism about delays in identifying the dead after a gunman killed as many as 30 UK nationals on the beach outside the Imperial Marhaba hotel in the resort of Sousse.
Cameron said: “I know it has taken time, but these are very difficult things and we must give them right.”
“This is a complex situation,” said his spokeswoman. “These are people who were enjoying their holiday, enjoying the sunshine, which means they did not always have ID on them.”
Four people needing treatment are being flown back to the UK on board an RAF C17 plane with medevac teams experienced at bringing injured service personnel back from operations overseas. The aircraft arrived in Tunisia this afternoon, where 50 UK officials are now on the ground, including at least 16 counterterrorism officers with more expected to follow.
Holly Graham, 29, from Perthshire, was among those relatives still waiting on Monday. She said on Saturday hotel staff had said her parents, William and Lisa Graham, had not been to their room since the attack and that their passports had been taken by police.
“I have been desperately trying to get information but nobody will tell me anything and it is very distressing,” she said. “I have tried the Foreign Office, the hotel, the hospital in Tunisia and the holiday firm Thomson, who they travelled with. Nobody can give me any information. Everyone just says they will call me back. But I haven’t heard anything and I am so worried.”
She has enlisted the help of her MP, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, who spoke to her on Monday. Graham said her family has now been assigned a family liaison officer from Police Scotland, and that has helped.
“They are still worried and concerned about the family members they have not heard from but they now know they have official support and will receive information as soon as the authorities have it,” said a spokesman for Ahmed-Sheikh.
The family of John and Janet Stocker, a retired couple from Crawley, have not had news of the couple’s whereabouts either.
Their grandson, Sam Stocker, said on Twitter on Monday that he has been seeking information on Twitter using the hashtag #FindJohnAndJanetStocker.
Simon Boon, 46, of Otley, near Ipswich, said his family were trying to find out about the fate of his brother-in-law, Philip Heathcote, 52, who had been with his wife, Allison Heathcote, 48, who was shot three times in the stomach and twice in the shoulder and has been put into an induced coma following surgery.
He told the BBC: “We have received very little information from the Foreign Office.”
Their son James and Mrs Heathcote’s youngest brother, Jonty Boon, 37, have flown to Tunisia.
Simon Boon said: “My brother Jonty was shook up when I spoke to him at 1.30am this morning. Seeing her on a ventilator must have been horrendous for him. They had been told that her [Allison’s] kidney had been removed – but they got there and found out it was the person in a bed next to her. She had been shot five times – three to the abdomen, which missed her vital organs, and twice in the shoulder. It has been a very distressing time. If I were to make any comment about Philip it would be an assumption, but we are not expecting good news. It’s very sombre out there.”
Other couples who are understood to be still missing include Angie and Ray Fisher, whose son, Adam Fisher, from Redhill in Surrey, has been calling the Foreign Office for information. There is still no news of John Welch and Eileen Swannack from Wiltshire.
