Overview
- Colin Timson, 74, fell ill on a TUI holiday and died in July 2024 with a Cape Verde death certificate citing acute gastroenteritis, dehydration, severe anaemia and septic shock, and his widow says she buried him in an unmarked grave three days later.
- Another holidaymaker, Laurence Brownlie, 67, became unwell in June 2024, collapsed three days later at the Meliá Llana resort, and a Cape Verde certificate recorded a suspected heart attack.
- Irwin Mitchell says it now represents more than 2,500 people who reported illnesses such as salmonella, E. coli and shigella after Cape Verde trips since summer 2022 and that families of roughly ten deceased holidaymakers are among those preparing legal action against TUI.
- Families and witnesses describe poor hotel hygiene including undercooked food, flies and dead cockroaches near pools, discoloured water and absence of a defibrillator, while some relatives say repatriation was constrained and bodies were embalmed before return, limiting UK post‑mortems.
- TUI says local representatives offered in‑resort support and that it has no record of complaints from the families during their stays, and legal responsibility under UK package‑holiday law for services supplied by third‑party hotels is likely to shape the coming claims and investigations.