PRESS RELEASE TUESDAY 15 OCTOBER 2002
STATEMENT BY THE FOREIGN SECRETARY ON ASSISTANCE FOR RELATIVES OF THE VICTIMS OF TERRORISM IN BALI AND ELSEWHERE
The Foreign Secretary, said earlier today:
"Given the scale of the tragedy of September 11th, we agreed that we would provide assistance when needed for relatives to travel to and from New York and to stay there for an appropriate period. We did so because of the exceptional nature of terrorism, in which individuals are random victims of attacks directed at society as a whole.
Now that the scale of the outrage in Bali is sadly becoming all too clear, I have decided that the same principles should apply. We will therefore make arrangements to reimburse the costs of bringing home the bodies of those who died, of the medical evacuation of the injured, and of paying the travel and certain accommodation costs of up to two relatives of the dead and injured who wish to travel to Indonesia, and to other places to which the injured have been transferred; in all cases where such costs are not met by insurance.
For reasons which I think everyone understands, travellers and those British citizens living abroad must insure themselves against the normal range of risks. But terrorism is different, for the reasons I have given. For the future, we shall work urgently with the insurance industry and others to see how between us we can ensure that the pain of victims of terrorism is not made even worse by financial hardship."
News Department, Downing Street (West), London SW1A 2AH
