Kinnock escapes hail of bullets

Glenys Kinnock's plane was shot at

Glenys Kinnock has escaped the Solomon Islands amid a hail of gunfire after being trapped in the midst of a violent coup.

The Labour MEP for Wales has described her dramatic flight from the Solomon Islands after a "surreal" confrontation with the leader of an armed coup.

After a three-hour dash to freedom in a chartered light aircraft she said she was relieved to be safe but remained deeply concerned over the threat of civil war in the islands.

The wife of EU Commissioner and former Labour leader Neil Kinnock was accompanied by Conservative fellow MEP John Corrie in a party of six - the first to get out since the coup began on Monday.

Rebels fired at MEP's plane

And it took the pilot of their twin-engined Otter plane two attempts to leave because of gunfire from marauding armed rebels on the airport perimeter, near the capital city of Honiara.

It was only after the flight to neighbouring Papua New Guinea that Mr Corrie, sitting next to the pilot, told Mrs Kinnock that their first take-off had been aborted because of gunfire.

"We started to take off and then headed back to where we started.

"The pilot said there was a faulty light on the panel. The second time everything was all right," said Mrs Kinnock.

I had heard gunfire but I assumed it was coming from the bay

Glenys Kinnock MEP

"Only later did John tell me the pilot was concerned the first time round in case the plane had been hit.

"I had heard gunfire but I assumed it was coming from the bay, where the armed militia had commandeered a navy patrol boat.

"In fact they were firing from the edge of the airport."

The great escape came after a day in which the coup had escalated into combat and shooting close to their hotel in the capital, Honiara.

Both MEPs are in Papua New Guinea and expected to fly on to Brisbane after resting.

"We had a very exciting morning," Mr Corrie said. "We managed to charter a small plane. When we taxied down the runway there was a tremendous fusillade of shots at us.

"A small part of the aircraft stopped functioning and we had to go back into the terminal," Mr Corrie added.

John Corrie: "We had a very exciting morning "

The two MEPs are, both leading figures on the European Parliament's development committee and had gone to the islands to act as mediators.

Ethnic clashes

Rebels who seized Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa'alu at gunpoint two days ago have dropped demands that he resign.

Instead, they issued a joint statement with the government declaring he will face a vote of no confidence at a parliamentary session on 15 June.

Mr Ulufa'alu will no longer be followed by armed rebel guards, with normal police providing his security, and he "is at liberty to move out of and into his residence and offices at will", the joint statement said.

Violence in the Islands sprang from ethnic clashes between the Malaitian people settled in the Guadalcanal province of the Solomons, and its indigenous population.

The Solomons are 2,230 miles north west of Wellington, New Zealand and 1,600 miles north east of Sydney, Australia.