Gotland mass evacuation drill tests Sweden crisis plan

Sweden held a mass evacuation exercise on Gotland on Wednesday, testing a crisis plan for the strategic Baltic Sea island as the country increases preparedness after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Around 200 volunteers were told in the morning to evacuate the island without being given a specific reason. The exercise focused on people with special needs, with some volunteers assigned roles such as acting as if they had dementia or bringing an animal, though only stuffed animals were used.

Hundreds of people from government agencies and organisations also took part. Volunteers first gathered in Visby, were moved by bus to an initial evacuation point and then taken to a reception centre in a community centre in the middle of the island. The centre was intended to provide food and accommodation for people with nowhere else to go.

Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, the county governor of Gotland, told AFP it was the first drill of its size on the island and said Sweden and other countries were building capacity to be more resilient to different crises.

Gotland lies fewer than 350 kilometres from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Sweden ended two centuries of military non-alignment after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and joined NATO in March 2024.