Coronavirus: Desperate struggle to bring home 11,000 Aussies stranded in at-risk hotspots

The government is working to help more than 11,000 Australians trapped in 13 countries where travel is difficult or impossible.

A young girl arrives in Brisbane after being evacuated from South America along with 109 other Australians on a Qantas flight from Peru. Picture: AAP

The Morrison government is working to help more than 11,000 Australians trapped in 13 priority countries where coronavirus restrictions have made travel difficult or impossible, with the vast majority believed to be seeking ­assisted flights home.

As the COVID-19 consular ­crisis stretches into its third week, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade holds fears for another 2900 short-term Australian travellers in Indonesia — most believed to be in Bali — who have defied pleas to return home by commercial means.

India is at the top of the DFAT list of countries of concern, with 6600 Australians having registered with the Australian high commission there.

There are also significant numbers of Australians seeking consular support in Thailand (1600) and The Philippines (1100), while 650 have sought help in South Africa.

The Australian can also reveal that the intense pressure to bring citizens home safely has taken its toll on DFAT officials, with the head of the department’s consular team stepping away from the role due to exhaustion.

About 400 Australians in Bangladesh are seeking help getting flights out of that country, while 220 in Lebanon have registered with the high commission there.

South America also remains a key hotspot, with more than 400 Australians trapped in seven countries — Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay — amid widespread border closures. The crisis has forced DFAT officials to become “travel agents” as well as stress counsellors for the thousands of Australians trapped overseas by the COVID-19 crisis, arranging 15 flights already for more than 10,000 citizens.

The most recent, from Peru, arrived in Brisbane on Tuesday with 110 Australians aboard.

More than 6000 Australians have also been taken off 49 cruise ships, with just nine Australians remaining on two ships.

 

Foreign Minister Marise Payne announced last Thursday the government would also facilitate commercial flights from Argentina, South Africa and India.

“The focus of our efforts is on Australians in countries where regular scheduled commercial options are no longer available,” a DFAT spokesman said.

“We continue to advise Australians who wish to return home to do so via commercial means where possible.”

But opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said comparable countries, such as the UK, were doing significantly more to get their citizens home.

“It is clear that far too many Australians are still stranded and at risk, and the government is going to have to dramatically step up its efforts to bring people to safety,” she said.

“We don’t want to look back and say there was more that we could have done to bring Australians home to safety.”

The UK recently announced a $146m airlift operation to rescue hundreds of thousands of British nationals stranded abroad because of the coronavirus pandemic.

DFAT’s priority list excludes the hundreds of thousands of Australians in countries still being served by flights, including the US, UK and parts of Europe.