The head of the UK Scouts has criticised organisers of an international jamboree in South Korea over alleged poor sanitary conditions on the campsite.
British nationals were forced to abandon tents for air conditioned hotels after a heatwave hit the site in Buan.
Temperatures had topped 35C at the site near the south-western town, where more than 40,000 Scouts from around the world camped out for the 12-day event.
Hundreds of participants have fallen ill due to the heat, prompting complaints from parents. On Saturday, 132 additional people were treated for heat-related conditions.
The British group of 4,500 Scouts aged 14 to 17 and adult volunteers have moved to Seoul and will now spend their time doing activities in the capital before their flights home on August 13.
Matt Hyde, chief executive of UK Scouts, said he has been left “disappointed” by tournament organisers for making people use dirty toilets on the campsite.
Mr Hyde told the BBC: “We are both disappointed and feel let down by the organisers because we repeatedly raised some of these concerns before we went.
“We were promised things were going to be put in place.
“If you can imagine, toilets that are being used by thousands and thousands of people are not being cleaned with the regularity you would expect, you can imagine the sort of things that people were seeing.
“It wasn’t just that, it was actually the lack of soap as well, so again it’s the compounding impact of all these things together but like all of these things, when you’re put in a position where you have to make difficult decisions there are choices.’
He added: “We have at this point had to make the difficult choice of investing our money to ensure that young people are safe. That is the right thing to do and the board took that decision and stand by it 100 per cent and unanimously.”
South Korean government and event officials said the safety of the more than 40,000 participants from 155 countries was their priority, with more water trucks, airconditioned spaces, medics and sanitation workers being sent to the site.
But British, American and Singapore contingents continued to leave the jamboree on the Saemangeum reclaimed land project on the west coast, moving to other locations in the country, including hotels in capital city Seoul.
There were calls for the jamboree to be wrapped up early but the Korea Scout Association and the government of South Korea decided it should continue.
