Britain has advised all its nationals to leave Tunisia two weeks after an Islamist attack targeting tourists in the coastal city of Sousse left 38 people dead.
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Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said another terrorist attack on the popular holiday destination with Britons is “highly likely”.
The FCO advise against all but essential travel to the rest of Tunisia.
The Tunisian government has said that the Mr Rezgui was trained in Libya, as were two gunmen who carried out another fatal attack on tourists at a museum in the capital Tunis earlier this year.
The Tunisian government plans to combat the threat of Libya-based terrorists entering the country by constructing a wall along a section of the border with its eastern neighbour.
About 20,000 British tourists were on package holidays in Tunisia at the time of the attack, as stated by ABTA, the country’s largest travel association.
Following the attack, Tunisia declared a state of emergency and deployed more than 1,400 soldiers to guard the country’s resorts and beaches, the BBC reported.
“Criminal and terrorist groups are plotting other attacks in Tunisia to kill, sap the morale of Tunisians and paralyze the economy”, he warned at an extraordinary plenary session on the state of emergency decision. As of now, however, there was no immediate change to its travel advice last updated five days ago.
Both firms have cancelled all their outbound flights to Tunisia for the summer season which is up to and including the 31 October.
“To those travelling independently, our advice is to return on commercial flights which are operating normally”, he added. “You should be especially vigilant at this time and follow the advice of Tunisian security authorities and your tour operator”.
Industry experts have said Westerners staying away from Tunisia for security reasons may be unwilling to switch to countries such as Turkey, which borders war-torn Syria, and Egypt, where there has been social and political unrest in recent years. We are also sending our Specialist Assistance Teams to Tunisia to offer customers additional support in resort.
The Independent reports that the posters have been praised by some but others have criticised them as the attack in Sousse targeted tourists. A ministry spokesman was not immediately available for comment following the British statement.
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Thomson and First Choice staff working in Tunisia are being returned home within the next 24 hours “as a precautionary measure”, the companies said.
