Envoys demand urgent aid for stranded Aussies in India

Two former high commissioners to India have called on the Morrison government to urgently help Australians stranded in the country to escape its unprecedented COVID crisis.

Victorian couple Hardip and Muneet Narang’s 18-month-old daughter Ziva is one of those Australian citizens on DFAT’s vulnerable list. and has been trapped in Mumbai with Mr Narang’s parents since March last year.

Two former high commissioners to India have called on the Morrison government to urgently help Australians stranded in the country to escape its unprecedented COVID crisis.

As India’s pandemic death toll surged past 200,000 on Wednesday, former Australian diplomats Patrick Suckling and John McCarthy said the government had a duty to get more than 9000 Australians home from the country as soon as possible.

Mr Suckling, who headed the New Delhi post from 2012 to 2016, said a brief pause in flights from India to Australia was understandable “but if it is anything more than that, then it’s unconscionable”.

“We are one of the wealthiest countries in the world and it is not beyond our wit or our heart to be able to manage a situation like this,” he said, a day after Scott Morrison shut the borders to flights from India until at least May 15. “It is the first responsibility of any government to look after its people. And that includes people overseas.”

The-now non-resident senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute said Australia needed to stand with India in its time of crisis, “not ostracise it”.

“We have deep bonds with India — our soldiers fought with Indian soldiers at Gallipoli — and we have a shared future,” Mr Suckling said. “We have to nurture that. And Indians who have become Australian citizens enrich us immeasurably.

“You’ve only got to watch an Australia-India cricket match to understand we are on exactly the same wavelength in so many different ways.”

Mr McCarthy, who served as high commissioner to India from 2004 to 2009, said Australia owed it to its citizens “to do our best to get them home”.

“I understand the reasons for the pause but I would go the other way — we have a duty to Australians that is extremely important,” he said. “In our concern not to overcrowd quarantine facilities, we are being a bit precious.”

He said the government particularly needed to get 650 Australians classified as “vulnerable” back home as soon as possible.

Mr McCarthy said at the very least, government-organised repatriation flights should bring passengers as originally scheduled. Australians could also return on flights delivering Australian-­donated medical equipment.

Victorian couple Hardip and Muneet Narang’s 18-month-old daughter Ziva is one of those Australian citizens on DFAT’s vulnerable list. and has been trapped in Mumbai with Mr Narang’s parents since March last year.

She was due to return to Australia with her grandparents, who have Australian visas and entry permits, on a May 25 repatriation flight which has been postponed until at least June.

“Yesterday my wife just broke down,” Mr Narang said. “She has been very strong, even though it has been more than a year. But yesterday was hard news for us. We don’t know what’s going to happen, and can’t do anything about it.”

The Prime Minister in Darwin on Wednesday said the Northern Territory’s Howard Springs was being upgraded from 800 beds to 2000 to enable repatriation flights to resume as soon as possible.