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Key events
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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
