ONE can only imagine the stress, anxiety and worry that Gourock woman Julia McIntyre is going through today as her family remain stranded in war-torn Sudan.

She has told how her sister, Jennifer McLellan, is in the troubled east African country, 'utterly terrified', with her husband and their four children.

With the World Health Organisation reporting that 400 civilians have already been killed amid the fighting, it is imperative that this family and others get flown home as a matter of extreme urgency.

Meanwhile, Julia, who has slammed the UK Government as 'negligent', says the window for her family's escape is 'getting narrower'.

MP Ronnie Cowan is doing all he can to assist in the family's evacuation from the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

The Foreign Office was yesterday urging British nationals to get to an airfield north of the city.

We, and all of Inverclyde, hope and pray for this family's safe return to the UK. 

FEARS that someone could end up being seriously hurt following a spate of 20 deliberate fires in Inverclyde in just seven days are very real.

Mindless idiots have been setting grassland ablaze at such rate that firefighters have been inundated with call-outs.

Councillor Chris Curley is not being alarmist when he says that these fires have the potential to 'put lives at risk'.

It is to be hoped that the culprits can be caught, and made an example of, before that potential is realised.