The Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment has tak­en of­fence at the de­ci­sion by the Unit­ed King­dom to is­sue a trav­el ad­vi­so­ry this week, warn­ing British trav­ellers of ter­ror­ist at­tacks on the Caribbean is­land.

For the first nine months of this year, Bar­ba­dos wel­comed 160,749 stay­over vis­i­tors from the UK, a slight de­crease from the pre­vi­ous year, with the Unit­ed States be­com­ing the new top mar­ket, though UK vis­i­tors still rep­re­sent a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of tourism.

In its trav­el ad­vi­so­ry, the British For­eign, Com­mon­wealth and De­vel­op­ment Of­fice (FC­DO) cau­tioned that “al­though there’s no re­cent his­to­ry of ter­ror­ism in Bar­ba­dos, at­tacks can­not be ruled out.

“There is a high threat of ter­ror­ist at­tacks glob­al­ly, af­fect­ing UK in­ter­ests and British na­tion­als, in­clud­ing from groups and in­di­vid­u­als who view the UK and British na­tion­als as tar­gets. Stay aware of your sur­round­ings at all times,” ac­cord­ing to the ad­vi­so­ry post­ed on the of­fi­cial Unit­ed King­dom gov­ern­ment web­site, which in­formed British cit­i­zens.

It said the UK Counter Ter­ror­ism Polic­ing has in­for­ma­tion and ad­vice on stay­ing safe abroad and what to do in the event of a ter­ror­ist at­tack.

But For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ker­rie Sym­monds while not to­tal­ly dis­miss­ing ter­ror­ist threats against the is­land, said that there would al­ways be con­cern about pos­si­ble at­tacks due to “hate­ful and di­vi­sive pol­i­cy mak­ing” by coun­tries in the North At­lantic.

“I don’t see any ba­sis for even men­tion­ing the is­sue of ter­ror­ism with re­spect to Bar­ba­dos be­cause it is ob­vi­ous­ly a nonex­is­tent threat and high­ly im­prob­a­ble,” Sym­monds told the on­line pub­li­ca­tion, Bar­ba­dos TO­DAY.

“But I imag­ine that as with many coun­tries in the North At­lantic, where, in re­cent times, right-wing pub­lic pol­i­cy has alien­at­ed and of­fend­ed both mi­grant pop­u­la­tions and the dig­ni­ty and self-re­spect of cit­i­zens of de­vel­op­ing coun­tries, there will be a con­cern about the po­ten­tial back­lash which such hate­ful and di­vi­sive pol­i­cy mak­ing can cause.

“Per­haps that is the rea­son why the is­sue has been raised. But, as the re­port it­self con­cedes, there is no re­cent his­to­ry of such in­ci­dents in this coun­try,” Sym­monds added.

The British gov­ern­ment is al­so urg­ing its na­tion­als to be aware that in Bar­ba­dos, “there have been in­ci­dents of vi­o­lent crime, in­clud­ing armed rob­bery, sex­u­al as­sault, gang-re­lat­ed shoot­ings and car­jack­ings.

“There has been an in­crease in gang-re­lat­ed mur­ders in­volv­ing guns. Some in­ci­dents have tak­en place in pop­u­lat­ed and pub­lic ar­eas. Take sen­si­ble pre­cau­tions to pro­tect your per­son­al safe­ty,” the FC­DO fur­ther ad­vised.

UK trav­ellers have al­so been ad­vised to make sure their ac­com­mo­da­tion is se­cure, to be care­ful when walk­ing alone off busy main roads and tak­ing mon­ey from ATMs, avoid iso­lat­ed ar­eas, in­clud­ing beach­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly af­ter dark, and to on­ly use li­censed taxis.

“Take par­tic­u­lar care around large gath­er­ings, in­clud­ing street and beach par­ties, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter dark or dur­ing the fes­ti­val sea­son. Do not car­ry large amounts of cash or wear ex­pen­sive-look­ing jew­ellery. Leave valu­ables and trav­el doc­u­ments in a safe­ty de­posit box or se­cure ho­tel safe.”

The FC­DO al­so post­ed a spe­cial mes­sage to LGBT+ trav­ellers say­ing that “in the Caribbean, at­ti­tudes to­wards the LGBT+ com­mu­ni­ty are most­ly con­ser­v­a­tive.

“It is un­com­mon for op­po­site or same-sex cou­ples to show af­fec­tion in pub­lic, for ex­am­ple, hold­ing hands or kiss­ing. Do­ing this may at­tract un­want­ed and neg­a­tive at­ten­tion”.

Sym­monds said based on Lon­don’s trav­el ad­vice pat­terns, it is ev­i­dent that the ad­vi­sories are is­sued on an an­nu­al ba­sis, which sought to look af­ter the safe­ty of their cit­i­zens while trav­el­ling abroad.

He not­ed that in 2023 and 2024, for ex­am­ple, ref­er­ences were made to the need to be cau­tious about be­ing in crowd­ed places and to be mind­ful of what was then de­scribed as pet­ty crime, es­pe­cial­ly in tourist ar­eas.

“What we are now see­ing is an in­creased fo­cus on the na­ture of crime, with the British gov­ern­ment em­pha­sis­ing the need for vis­i­tors to be cau­tious about iso­lat­ed ar­eas, and urg­ing their cit­i­zens to use reg­is­tered taxis, and to be gen­er­al­ly sen­si­tive to their per­son­al se­cu­ri­ty, as in­stances of gun-re­lat­ed crimes and oth­er se­ri­ous of­fences have in­creased. In that re­gard, the re­port was faith­ful to the facts,” Sym­monds told the on­line pub­li­ca­tion.

CMC/ag/ir/2025