Maldives boosts tourist resort security amid search for explosives

Foreign minister says tourism not the target of unrest in the country which has seen an alleged assassination attempt on its president

The Maldives has tightened security at luxury tourist resorts as the authorities investigate an explosion aboard President Abdulla Yameen’s speed boat, the country’s foreign minister said on Tuesday.

Dunya Maumoon added searches were ongoing for explosives following the September 28 explosion aboard the presidential craft as it docked in the capital, Male.

President Yameen escaped unhurt, but his wife and two others were wounded in what the police say was an assassination attempt. Vice President Ahmed Adeeb was arrested on Saturday in connection with the blast.

“We can reassure and say that even learning from this [boat] incident itself, we have tightened and strengthened security in the resorts,” foreign minister Maumoon told AFP by telephone from Male.

But she said tourism, which accounts for over a quarter of the country’s GDP and remains a key source of foreign exchange, was not a target for violence.

The well-heeled holidaymakers arriving at the airport islet of Hulhule are usually whisked away in speed boats or sea planes to their tiny coral island resorts without travelling to the capital island of Male, where there have been regular anti-government protests in recent years.

Every year more than one million tourists visit the Maldives, a nation of 1,192 small coral islands dotted around the equator. White sandy beaches, turquoise waters, shallow lagoons and secluded islets have become a key attraction for honeymooners as well as celebrities seeking privacy.

The Australian government last week told its citizens to exercise a “high degree of caution” while travelling to the capital island “due to the possibility of civil unrest and the threat of terrorist attacks”.

However, Maumoon said tourists were safe.

“We should not over-exaggerate this particular [boat] incident,” she said. “The country has largely been very peaceful and tourists have been safe. There has not been any targeting of tourism.”

President Yameen said on Sunday that his deputy was arrested because he posed a threat to the country.

Opposition activists have threatened to call a tourism boycott over the jailing of the country’s first democratically elected leader, Mohamed Nasheed, after a rushed trial which the UN has said was seriously flawed.

Yameen, who came to power in November 2013 following a controversial election, jailed Nasheed for 13 years in March on terror-related charges and faces international censure over his crackdown on dissent.