St Lucia police have charged six local men with raping two British women who were volunteering on a conservation project on the Caribbean island.
The men were arrested in connection with last week’s night time assault on the two women on an isolated stretch of Grande Anse beach in the north east of the island.
The women, aged 24 and 31, were working on a wildlife conservation project with the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and St Lucia’s Ministry of Agriculture when they were assaulted by six men wearing masks.
British High Commissioner Karl Burrows advised visitors to the island to exercise caution as they would anywhere else, saying that crimes against tourists were not widespread in tourism-dependent St. Lucia.
“We have about 75,000 British visitors to St Lucia every year and the vast majority of visits are incident free,” Burrows said.
But it was the second attack on visitors to the island in the last two months.
Three American men were attacked and beaten in their holiday home in the south western town of Soufriere in March.