900 foreigners still missing
2005-09-08 12:00
Washington - Nearly 900 foreign nationals, many of them French and British, are still missing in the areas devastated last week by Hurricane Katrina, The Washington Times said on Thursday.
While consular officials consulted by the daily reported some 160 French citizens and 96 Britons missing, Mexicans, especially illegal immigrants, were expected to outnumber all other nationalities, the daily said.
The United States State Department on Wednesday afternoon told the newspaper that, based on numbers provided by various embassies, 883 foreign nationals were still unaccounted for in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
According to the South African government, three citizens were still listed as missing in the area.
A spokesperson for the British Embassy said 50 Britons were located in the New Orleans' Superdome, but that 96 other nationals were still missing.
At the French Embassy, a spokesperson said 50 French had been located and that information on an additional 10 nationals had been received, but that 160 Frenchmen were yet to be found.
A Mexican consular official in Houston, Texas, told The Washington Times that a number of Mexicans were still listed as missing.
Consular officials, who were prevented from entering the flooded streets of New Orleans until Wednesday, were now navigating and walking the inundated streets looking for their missing nationals, the daily said.
Other nationals listed as missing included five Swedes and a handful of Germans, the daily added.