Gap Year Terror in New Orleans

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Louisiana state officials last Friday again blocked requests to allow British consular staff into the city amid increasingly desperate attempts to evacuate up to 100 Britons from the area, including up to 30 trapped in appalling conditions in the city’s Superdome stadium. </p>

<p>The Britons, many of them on a gap year, were herded into the stadium along with about 25,000 other people unable to flee the city. The building was later declared unsafe, but evacuation halted after rescue workers came under sniper fire. </p>

<p>The girlfriend of one Briton was threatened with rape, and another said people trapped inside were becoming so desperate that one leapt to her death. </p>

<p>Will Nelson, 21, of Epsom, Surrey, sent an e-mail to his family last Friday pleading for help. “Please can you try and contact the embassy, tell them that we really need their help with getting out of here — it’s turning into a war zone,” he wrote. </p>

<p>Yesterday he said troops in the Superdome had told Britons to use sharp objects such as scissors or tweezers to protect themselves from gangs. “At one point we had to carry a US national guard on a stretcher after he had been shot by looters outside,” he said.

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