Shocking number of Aussies still stranded overseas

Thousands of vulnerable Australians and unaccompanied children are still stranded overseas and facing a mammoth wait to get home.

Australians stranded overseas during the Covid-19 pandemic have waited an average of 2.2 months to come home after registering with the federal government.

But some were trapped for as long as 13 months, according to government data obtained by the Herald Sun.

Between Australia’s border closing in March last year and the end of May this year, there were 87,893 Australians able to return after registering with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Of those, 20,577 were in India, 12,348 in the United Kingdom and 4252 had been in The Philippines.

But only 16 per cent of Australian arrivals since March last year had registered with DFAT before returning home.

Janine Duffy Hopkins is one of many Australians trapped overseas due to Covid.

DFAT officials told a parliamentary committee last week that 38,523 Australians had told the government they were still seeking to return home, including 4569 who had been assessed as vulnerable and 438 unaccompanied children.

The greatest need remains in India, where 10,268 Australians are registered to come home, and the UK, where 6405 Australians are trying to leave.

About 6000 people registered with DFAT said they wanted to come home after September.

The government has ­arranged 18 repatriation flights into Howard Springs this month, including six each from London and New Delhi, as those still stranded face longer waits to return after the national cabinet halved the weekly cap on overseas arrivals last month.

Janine Duffy Hopkins and her engineer husband had been planning to return from the US last month after her elderly father’s health declined in Australia.

Jesús Cabello and his Australian wife, Amy Crawford, 46, can't get back to Australia from Spain where they live with daughters, Olivia and Paloma.

Ms Hopkins, who has lived overseas for six years, packed up her Florida home and moved to Atlanta to try to secure a flight home.

“The day we arrived (in Atlanta) the government announced they were cutting arrival numbers, which had the immediate effect of airlines cutting flights and raising prices to around $US20,000 ($27,200) per person for a one-way flight,” she said. “We now are in the position of either paying ridiculous prices for airfares or waiting it out.”

Amy Crawford, in Spain with her husband and two daughters, said she was luckier than most stranded Australians as she had kept her job.

But Spain’s lockdown shuttered her husband’s tailoring business, and meant the family could not afford the cost of the trip home.

She said she felt “robbed” to have missed grieving the death of her grandfather.

Originally published as Shocking number of Aussies still stranded overseas