Coronavirus: hundreds of Aussies stranded as borders shut

Dads on rescue missions, retirees, teachers, families with medical issues; Australians stranded in Cambodia face their own unique predicament.

Marcus Bayly with children Sarah and Ted in Phnom Penh on Sunday. Picture: Supplied

Dads on rescue missions, retirees, teachers, families with medical issues; of the more than 300 Australians stranded in Cambodia ahead of an expected crackdown there by the Hun Sen regime each faces their own unique predicament.

What many do have in common are days and weeks of fruitless efforts to get out of the country as commercial flights have dried up and transit routes have closed.

“It’s been like watching dominoes fall over,” says Marcus Bayly of his frustrated efforts over the past fortnight to get himself and his 18-year-old daughter, Sarah, home.

The Newcastle health professional, whose job as a perfusionist providing artificial heart and lung circulation during surgery will likely be in high demand in coming weeks, flew to Phnom Penh on March 20 to bring home the distressed teenager who found herself stranded by rolling border closures on her first overseas trip, during which she was going to see her brother, Ted, who works in Phnom Penh. Since then Mr Bayly has spent more than $9000 on flights that, one after another, have fallen over and for which he has yet to receive any refunds.

The most recent advice he received from an Australian consular official in Phnom Penh was to “stop throwing money at flights and bunker down”.

“But how long do we do that for?” he asked. “The problem with Phnom Penh is there are no direct flights. Anywhere we go we have to transit and that’s where the difficulty lies.”

Another Australian, who asked not to be named, said he had lost more than $10,000 trying to get his family of nine — which includes three severe asthmatics and an autistic child running out of medication — home from Phnom Penh.

The only advice he has received from the Australian embassy was to book seats on an ANA commercial flight flying via Japan to Australia at a total cost of $43,000.

For him and many other Australians seeking a way out of Cambodia, the sense of urgency has been heightened by state of emergency legislation likely to come into effect this week that rights groups say will give Prime Minister Hun Sen unfettered powers.

“This is a guy with a long history of severe rights abuses,” Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said on Sunday. “It will be back to the Pol Pot era where civil liberties and human rights simply do not matter.”

At the very least, the legislation will likely ban all travel between provinces and the capital ahead of Buddhist new year celebrations, stranding any Australians who have not yet made their way back to the capital at a time when resentment of foreigners in the country is rapidly escalating.

Peter Gillard, a 26-year-old pilot who set up a Facebook group on the weekend called “Aussies attempting to Leave Cambodia”, says he did so to gather interest among stranded Australians for a charter flight to Darwin after unsuccessfully appealing for help from the Australian embassy.

While the embassy’s website reassuringly talks of staff “working around the clock to provide assistance to Australians in Cambodia during this uncertain time”, Mr Gillard says he’s had no luck contacting anyone outside weekday office hours. “Without any assistance it’s been pretty full-on trying to make this happen,” he told The Australian.

“These are the things we are having to work around. People just want to get home. Especially if the state of emergency is called here.”

While Prime Minister Scott Morrison has criticised Australians who defied the government’s travel advice to go abroad, Mr Gillard says most Australians registered with the embassy in Cambodia don’t fall in that category, and have been trying hard to get out independently.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the embassy was working with airlines and government authorities to help secure commercial flight options for Australians in Cambodia and nearby countries to return.

 “The embassy is providing regular updates to the local Australian community, including through social media.”