Rising crime takes Antigua off cruise routes
(The Telegraph): A leading cruise line has cancelled all calls at Antigua following the murder on the island of one of its passengers last month. The move by Star Clippers came 10 days after the body of a 30-year-old American woman was discovered near Pigeon Point Beach, an area popular with tourists. Nina Nilssen, 30, from San Francisco, had wandered away from a nearby barbecue during an onshore break. A 24-year-old man has been arrested and charged with her murder. Carnival Cruise Lines removed Antigua from its Caribbean itineraries in January after several of its passengers were involved in an altercation with local police.
There were 13 murders in Antigua in 2009, a rate of around 17 per 100,000 people – more than five times that of Britain, but low compared with some Caribbean countries. There were around 1,660 murders in Jamaica in 2009, at a per capita rate of 61 per 100,000 people and 490 murders in Trinidad and Tobago last year, at a rate of 36 per 100,000 people.
CNS note: There were six fatal shootings on Grand Cayman in 2009: Fabian Powell, Jerome Russell, Omar Samuels, Marcus Ebanks, Carlo Webster and Fabian Reid. Sabrina Schirn was also murdered and the death of Sherman Bodden, aka DJ Jazzy B, resulted in a manslaughter conviction.
Category: World News
This is a wake up call for Cayman and we best be prepared for the possibilty of cruise lines pulling out. Our social system and lack of morals, education and appreciation have put us on a sad bleak future for many of our citizens. Our young men seem to think it is cool to impersonate gangsters and do harm to others instead of blaming expats for everything. If it is correct the 2 robbers of CNB are indeed Caymanians then we certainly have a serious problem. As stated by a previous author 19.21 our young women are not looking for articulate partners yet rather gang members and drug dealers who as we’ve seen either will be murdered or spend a life in jail.
Also to the Cayman Brackers stop with your ignorant attitude and remember that we’re all CAYMANIANS and don’t let it suit you to as when you’re Brackers. This sort of thinking will not do any good so please if you don’t have anything good to say then be quiet. I hope and I’m positive that we’ll have a overhaul of our judicial system to put harsher sentences in place.
CNS, thanks for the homicide stats. By comparison, those would put us around 14 per 100,000 people. That is good for comparison purposes but obviously much too high. In any society, homicides resulting from ’emotive’ matters or domestic issues (same category I guess?) will always occur and if we can keep it to that we will be grateful.
But as long as crime prevention, detection/investigation and prosecution remains weak (the latter is also dependent on the investigators) our hope of keeping these stats low are slim.
We could give tourists kevlar vests with a turtle on them.
Here’s a novel idea… tied to the current headline… why doesn’t someone contact Star Clippers and ask them to stop by Cayman Brac and Little Cayman where there is no crime?
No crime – quit it Joker – Batman needs you back…
Just no violent crime against tourists – YET…
Una betta mind unna dont get the same, then the cruise ships ga have come Brac, Una nah gah like that!
Come to the Brac & destroy the beautiful, existing reef system to build a proper docking site? Why would you want that? Be careful what you wish for Bracca.
Think you need to read my post again
Stupids…we are all CAYMANIANS…Grand, Brac or Little…same peeps…No sah!
English please.
Oooh I’m sure they’d absolutely love that…
The way things are going, it’s just a matter of time.
We hope that Grand Cayman will learn its lesson and tacle crime effectively so that it will not be the next to be affected.
This is a beautiful Island and my prayers are for the safety and harmony in the community. Caymanains and others living here deserve this place to be a Paradise.
The murder rate on Antigua is about the same as Cayman. The only difference is that no tourists have been targetted in Cayman YET.
Antigua is a country with great beauty and real landscapes and attractions. So the cruise operators obviously had to think hard about their decisions. Somehow I don’t think it will take much for them to abandon Cayman in the same way if crime continues to spiral. It is already becoming known as being prohibitively expensive and really not a lot to see or do here.
Yea our criminals are careful to not disrupt the tourism business god bless them, I guess its ok to slaughter locals but leave the tourist alone.
Missing the point of the post a little bit.
Why waste brain cells writing uneducated nonsense? It must be difficult enough for you to walk and chew gum at the same time.
The writing is on the wall!!! Time to get this country back under control and get these criminals dealt with….this kind of move by Carnival could destroy the Cayman Islands…are we going to let the country go down this road or are we as citizens and residents going to finally say, enough is enough and take back our country from these elements who wish to destroy our lives?? It is time for good men and women to come together and make a stand!! It does not matter where you are from, what color you are or what your religious beliefs are…We need to stand up for ourselves…no one else is going to do it for us..just like after Ivan, WE need to be the ones to step up and get things going and put our country back on its rails…Let’s go people…WE CAN DO IT!!!
You are absolutely right!! No one else is going to do it for you. Not Government, Not the police, Not those who are viewed as a temporary asset, not those who are being abused by their Caymanian work lords, not the tourist, and definitely not any non Caymanian that would be a target by the very successful gun toten crimeanians. Just you few thousand REAL Caymanians who so far have done zero.
"WE need to step up and get things going and put OUR country back on its rails.
All WE see is They can’t do anything. Truth That!
But the gangsters here-like elsewhere-don’t give a flying, er, monkey about Tourism or anything else. All they want is their drugs, their sense of power from the gang and the guns to make up for the fact that theyare illiterate, inarticulate, dumb insensitive SOBs who, unfortunately in Cayman seem to be able to get terrific-er- relationships from stupid middle class girls XXXX who bear their children and defend them (as sensitive, humorous and talented, for Christ’s sake) no matter what. How can we achieve what this poster Rorschach reasonably proposes as long as we have this gangland mentality coursing through the veins of people who should know better.
I am a well known fairly high achieving Caymanian, pretty well respected in Cayman but when I die I am certain I will not have as glowing and saintly an obituary as appeared recently in the Compass for one of our deceased, shall we say, "troubled young men".