Closing summary
Some passengers who left the MV Hondius cruise ship at the centre of a deadly outbreak of hantavirus have departed Tenerife by plane and arrived in the Spanish capital of Madrid.
14 Spanish nationals – 13 passengers and one crew member – were the first to disembark and have reportedly arrived in Madrid, where they face mandatory quarantine at a military hospital.
The evacuation of most of the ship’s passengers and crew would continue until a final repatriation flight to Australia on Monday, according to Spanish health minister Monica García, who confirmed earlier that all passengers on board were asymptomatic.
Five French passengers will be repatriated today, and will be hospitalised for 72 hours for monitoring, after which they will quarantine at home for 45 days, France’s foreign ministry said.
A flight to the Netherlands transporting citizens of Germany, Belgium, Greece and some of the crew from the ship, along with flights to the UK, Canada, Turkey, France, Ireland and the US, are also expected today.
MV Hondius arrived in the Canary Islands this morning carrying 146 people, after three people died of the virus and eight more became ill.
You can read all the latest developments in our wrap up here.
In other news, Russia accused Kyiv of breaking a US brokered ceasefire on Sunday, while Ukrainian officials said one person had been killed and others injured by Russian drone and artillery strikes in the past 24 hours.
Germany is reviving efforts to buy Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US, the Financial Times reported, amid concerns there are no European ground-launched long-range systems immediately available.
Thanks for following along. We are closing the blog now. But you can keep up with the rest of our Europe coverage here.
Spanish health minister Monica García said the evacuation of most of the ship’s nearly 150 passengers and crew would continue until a final repatriation flight to Australia on Monday. About 46 people have got off the MV Hondius so far today, Dr Diana Rojas Alvarez, the health operations lead (from Tenerife), said.
Spanish evacuees from MV Hondius arrive in Madrid - AFP journalist
A flight carrying the 14 Spanish evacuees from the MV Hondius cruise ship has now arrived in Madrid from Tenerife, according to a journalist from the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.
The passengers and crew arrived at the Torrejon airbase and will observe quarantine at a military hospital in Madrid (see post at 09.49 for more details).
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Sky News is reporting that 20 British nationals who were passengers aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship will fly back to the UK today from Tenerife. Two further people – who are dual nationals – will get on separate repatriation flights to other countries, the outlet reported.
As we have previously mentioned, the MV Hondius arrived in Tenerife on Sunday morning, with Spanish authorities beginning evacuations of the ship by nationality.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said earlier that 22 British passengers and crew will be transferred to an isolation facility at Arrowe Park hospital on the Wirral, Merseyside, after being repatriated to the UK on a chartered flight.
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Over in the UK, British prime minister Keir Starmer’s premiership looks like it could be on the verge of collapsing next week as pressure grows on him to step down after Labour suffered heavy losses in historic local elections. You can keep up with the latest developments in our UK politics live blog:
Robyn Vinter is north of England correspondent at the Guardian, currently in Tenerife
A press conference has just finished at the Tenerife port of Granadilla with Javier Padilla, the Spanish secretary of state for health, in which he explained the process for those leaving the ship.
Doctors have been taking the temperature of everyone on the vessel and filling out a health survey designed to identify hantavirus symptoms.
They are given plastic ponchos, face and hair coverings, and are taken in small groups from the ship to the dock, where they board coaches that take them to the airport, about a 10-minute drive away.
They are allowed to take small bags of personal items with them and the rest of their luggage will be left on the cruise ship and taken to the Netherlands for decontamination.
He said the UK and US had asked for further testing on board the MV Hondius, which was refused, but the countries were told they could test passengers on the plane as soon as it leaves the airport.
Countries are carrying out their own health checks, which for some, like the UK and Spain, involves PCR testing. He said the European Commission and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) were “trying to achieve a certain degree of coordination, and not a high variation among the different countries”.
“But every country has its own confidences.”
When asked about countries, such as the US, choosing not to impose mandatory quarantine on its citizens coming off the ship, he said it was up to those countries to take what they think is the best action, however, “I don’t think it’s best practice from a clinical point of view.”
He said 6 May was being treated as the last contact date.
The next passengers to leave are from the UK, France, Canada, the Netherlands. This afternoon passengers from Turkey, Ireland, and the US are expected to depart.
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British paratroopers lead airdrop onto Tristan da Cunha for suspected hantavirus case
British paratroopers have dropped on to Britain’s most remote overseas territory, Tristan da Cunha, along with medics and medical supplies, after a case of suspected hantavirus was confirmed there, Reuters reports.
A team of six paratroopers and two military clinicians from 16 Air Assault Brigade jumped from an RAF A400M transport aircraft that flew 6,788 km (4,218 miles) from RAF Brize Norton air base in Oxfordshire to Ascension Island then another 3,000 km due south to Tristan da Cunha.
Dropped alongside them on Saturday were oxygen supplies and other medical aid. The A400M was refuelled mid-flight by a supporting RAF Voyager.
The operation is the first time the UK military has deployed medical personnel to provide humanitarian support via a parachute jump, the Ministry of Defence said in a statement.
The supplies were primarily destined for a British man who UK health authorities say was a passenger on the cruise ship that was hit by a hantavirus outbreak and which docked at the island between 13 April and 15. The WHO said the man reported symptoms compatible with hantavirus on 28 April and that he is stable and in isolation.
“With oxygen supplies on the island at a critical level, an airdrop with medical personnel was the only method of getting vital care to the patient in time,” the Ministry of Defence statement said.
Tristan da Cunha, home to only around 200 people, is halfway between South Africa and South America. It is the world’s remotest inhabited island, more than 2,400 km and a six-day boat ride from St Helena, its nearest inhabited neighbour. It usually relies on a medical team of two people for its health needs, and is normally only accessible by boat as it has no airstrip.
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Ship to make further stop in Tenerife before heading to Rotterdam, says operator
The operator of the MV Hondius, Oceanwide Expeditions, has given an update on the plan for the ship after the evacuation operation is complete.
In statement the operator said after all guests and limited crew have disembarked, MV Hondius will take on necessary supplies at Santa Cruz, Tenerife before transiting to the port of Rotterdam, the Netherlands with the remaining crew members aboard.
The expected sailing time to Rotterdam is about 5 days.
Angelique Chrisafis is the Guardian’s Paris correspondent
Five French passengers on the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship have boarded a special medical flight from Tenerife and are en route to Paris. The flight took off from Tenerife at around noon local time.
Nicolas Pillerel of the French embassy in Spain was present in Tenerife to oversee logistics. He told the French public broadcaster FranceInfo that the foreign office crisis centre had organised a special flight with medical staff on board to transport the five people to an airport in the Paris area.
The five cruise-ship passengers would then be hospitalised for 72 hours for tests and monitoring, in line with World Health Organisation guidelines.
After this, the five people would return to their homes in France where they would have to isolate for 45 days under strict monitoring and controls by French health authorities.
The French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu has called a special meeting of ministers and health officials in Paris this afternoon to discuss the situation.
Updated
First plane carrying passengers evacuated from hantavirus-hit cruise ship has left Tenerife
We have some updates from Tenerife, where a small group of Spanish passengers evacuated from the hantavirus-hit MV Hondius cruise ship has reportedly left on a plane for the Gómez Ulla Central Defense hospital in Madrid. They will be under quarantine when they reach Madrid.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that he thought Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was coming to an end (see this story for more detail).
“I think that the matter is coming to an end,” Putin told reporters after a scaled-back military parade in Moscow commemorating the Soviet victory in World War Two, referring to the “special military operation” (war) in Ukraine.
Putin indicated that he would be willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe, saying his preferred negotiating partner would be Gerhard Schröder, who was German chancellor from 1998 to 2005, and has a background of being a close friend and ally of Putin, and history of business ties to Russia.
Germany has now responded to Putin’s suggestion, with an official telling the Reuters news agency on Sunday that the offer was not credible because Russia had not changed any of its conditions, adding that an initial test would be whether Moscow was willing to extend the three-day ceasefire that expires tomorrow. The official said Putin had made a series of unserious offers aimed at dividing the western alliance.
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The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said recently that a planned deployment of US long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Germany – announced by the former US president Joe Biden – was being called off, at least for the time being.
Merz’s criticism of the US-Israeli war on Iran – and his suggestion that the US had been “humiliated” by Iranian negotiators – has angered Donald Trump, causing relations between Berlin and Washington to slump to a low point.
Pentagon officials are alarmed at the fact the US military fired over 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles in the first four weeks of war on Iran, according to the Washington Post.
The rapid rate of use prompted internal discussions about how to make more of the missiles available, sources told the US outlet.
Germany revives effort to buy US Tomahawks - report
Germany is reviving efforts to buy Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US, the Financial Times is reporting.
German defence minister Boris Pistorius is reportedly planning a trip to Washington to revive Germany’s offer to buy long-range systems, which was first submitted last July. The US is yet to respond to this offer.
The visit, however, hinges upon whether Pistorius can secure a meeting with Pete Hegseth, his US counterpart, the FT reports. “The key thing is to have the strike capabilities in Europe,” a “government insider” told the newspaper.
Tomahawk land attack missiles, first used in combat in 1991, are long-range, guided cruise missiles typically launched from sea to attack targets in deep-strike missions.
There are no European ground-launched long-range systems immediately available, according to the FT report. So the Tomahawk missiles, along with the mobile Typhon launchers Germany also reportedly wants to buy from the US, would allow the German armed forces to hit targets hundreds of kilometres deep into enemy territory if necessary.
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Russian attacks reportedly continue on Ukraine despite ceasefire
In other news, there are reports of Russian attacks continuing on Ukraine despite a ceasefire that was meant to run from Saturday 9 May to Monday 11 May.
There are reports of people being injured by Russian strikes in areas including the Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson regions.
One person was killed and three others injured in Russian attacks on the Zaporizhia and Polohiv regions, Zaporizhzhia’s governor, Ivan Fedorov, said in a Telegram post this morning. Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted all 27 drones launched by Russia overnight.
Russia, Ukraine and the US president, Donald Trump, on Friday announced that a three-day ceasefire between both sides would come into effect from Saturday, when Russia held a scaled-back Victory Day parade in Moscow’s Red Square.
Moscow and Kyiv have traded accusations of violations amid continued drone activity and civilian casualties on both sides. The Kremlin said there were no plans to prolong the truce.
You can read the latest developments about the evacuation efforts from Tenerife in this wrap up by my colleague Robyn Vinter:
Robyn Vinter is a Guardian correspondent reporting from Tenerife
There has been a flurry of action as a handful of Spanish passengers have made their way off the MV Hondius in blue plastic ponchos, helped by medical teams in hazmat suits.
They were taken from the ship to the dock in a small boat and then straight onto a coach now heading for the airport only a couple of miles away.
Updated
Meanwhile, the European commissioner for equality, preparedness and crisis management, Hadja Lahbib, has said that an air ambulance has been sent from Norway to Tenerife at Spain’s request.
First group of Spanish passengers disembarks from hantavirus-hit cruise ship
The government has begun the evacuation of the first passengers from the MV Hondius ship which arrived in Tenerife this morning, ending a journey that started in southern Argentina on 1 April.
A small group of passengers, all Spanish nationals, is now headed to Tenerife’s port of Granadilla, Spain’s health ministry said.
The passengers will be transported directly from the port in military buses to the airport and evacuated by a Spanish government plane to Madrid where they will taken to hospital and quarantined, officials have said.
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Countries around the world are scrambling to track down and monitor more than two dozen passengers who disembarked the MV Hondius cruise ship before the deadly outbreak was detected.
A 70-year-old Dutch man showed symptoms on 6 April and died five days later but it was attributed to natural causes and raised no alarm.
His body was taken off the ship on 24 April when it docked at the remote southern Atlantic island of St Helena, where other passengers disembarked.
It wasn’t until 2 May that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a passenger.
Updated
We have a useful explainer on the hantavirus here:
While nobody onboard the vessel has symptoms, passengers and crew have been confined to their cabins in the last few days to help halt the spread of the virus, which is only transmitted through very close contact.
They will each be screened for hantavirus, which can cause flu-like symptoms leading to respiratory arrest and death, in some cases. The 19 passengers and three crew from the UK will be immediately flown from Tenerife to Merseyside for hospital quarantine at Arrowe Park hospital in Wirral.
Those from elsewhere will take separate flights to their home countries, after reassurance from the Spanish government and the World Health Organization (WHO) that they will not come into contact with people in Tenerife.
They are being asked to isolate for 42 days from their point of potential exposure, which for most of the passengers will be many days ago. Authorities have sought to make clear that the virus, though serious, would not result in another pandemic.
However, the director general of the WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was asked at a press conference in Tenerife late on Saturday night whether allowing passengers to travel all over the world and relying on them to self-isolate with no oversight could cause further outbreaks.
“Based on our assessment, what you have said is not going to happen,” he told the media.
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The Spanish health minister, Monica García, has been speaking to reporters at the the port of Granadilla de Abona in Tenerife.
“The last flight of the entire procedure is scheduled for tomorrow, which is the flight to Australia,” she told the press.
The ship’s 14 Spaniards would leave first, followed by a Dutch flight that would also take citizens from Germany, Belgium, Greece and part of the crew, García said.
Separate flights for Canadian, Turkish, French, British, Irish and US citizens were also planned for Sunday, she added.
Hantavirus-hit cruise ship arrives in Tenerife with Spanish passengers to be evacuated first
Good morning, and welcome to our Europe live blog. Spanish health officials have said all the passengers on the hantavirus-stricken MV Hondius remain asymptomatic after the vessel arrived in Tenerife on Sunday, almost a month after the first passenger died of the rodent-borne disease on board the ship.
“The anchoring has been a success despite all the difficulties,” the health minister, Mónica García, said after intensive preparations to receive the ship in the port of Granadilla were carried out over recent days.
She confirmed all passengers remain asymptomatic and that the first nationals to be evacuated will be the Spanish ones, according to Spanish newspaper El País.
García said they were undergoing a final medical assessment before their disembarkation and confirmed that all the repatriation flights taking citizens back to their countries will take off by tomorrow.
There were 146 passengers from 20 different nationalities onboard the MV Hondius, where an outbreak has killed three people and caused an international health scare. These countries included the UK, the US, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, the Philippines and Singapore.
Authorities have said the passengers and crew members who will disembark will have no contact with the local population in Tenerife. Health officials continue to stress that the risk of contagion for the general population is low.
In other news around Europe:
Vladimir Putin has said he thinks the Ukraine war is winding down, adding that he was ready to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a third country only once all conditions for a potential peace agreement were settled.
The pro-European centre-right leader Péter Magyar has been sworn in as prime minister of Hungary, marking the official end to Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power.
The king of Denmark asked a centre-right politician to try to form a new government after the prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, failed to put together a ruling coalition.
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