  We study the partial fragmentation of a strange quark star into strangelets
during the process of merger of two strange quark stars. We discuss the fate of
the fragments considering their possible evaporation into nucleons. We show
that only a rather small amount of large size strangelets, ejected from the
spiral arms in the post-merger, survives a total evaporation into nucleons. In
this way we demonstrate that: 1) the density of strangelets in the galaxy is
too low to trigger the conversion of all neutron stars into strange quark stars
and it allows the co-existence of both types of compact objects; 2) the
probability of direct detection of a strangelet is negligible and therefore its
nondetection is compatible with the strange quark matter hypothesis; 3) most of
the matter ejected during and after the merger of two strange quark stars
evaporates into nucleons and therefore it can generate a kilonova-like signal.
