Pressure building to bring Kiwis stuck in Peru home

March 29, 2020

New Zealanders were stopped from taking a flight that would've seen them transit through Sydney because of visa issues, but they're not the only kiwis trapped.

Pressure is building to get Kiwis stuck in Peru home after a bungled repatriation effort where New Zealanders were stopped from taking a flight because visa issues prevented them transiting through Sydney.

Christchurch dad Scott Brooker-Leon is trying to keep busy with his wife, one of 87 Kiwis stuck in Peru

“We got the news that her mum was unwell, so she took off straight away to go and spend some time with her, expecting it to be a three-week trip, but here we are with no end in sight,” he said.

Despite paying more than $5000 to a charter company to fly out of Lima, she was one of an estimated 24 New Zealanders not allowed to take a flight to Sydney

The problem for those New Zealanders was there wasn't a connecting flight on Tuesday from Sydney to New Zealand.

With Australia now requiring Kiwis to transit through within one calendar day, with those now stranded blaming our consular services

“I'd like to say the government actually they need to start taking care of us, they talk about repatriation flights as if they're actually running them themselves and they're not,” Trevor Larson said from Peru.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry says it is continuing to investigate options.

“We have been very clear that repatriation in some parts of the world has become more difficult, but I know MFAT continues to maintain contact,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.

Maree Larsen is one of 24 New Zealanders stuck in Peru after being denied a return home because a connecting Air New Zealand flight from Sydney to Auckland was cancelled.

Tim Gibb is one of 23,000 kiwis who are registered abroad.

He's in lockdown in a Peruvian hostel, but worried about how much longer he'll have to stay.

“The scary thing here is because of the way Peru is handling it they are closing down hostels we just saw in Cusco two days ago they quarantined a whole hostel because there were two cases in that hostel and they say they could be quarantined for three months,” he said.

A Christchurch couple are possibly some of the most far-flung kiwis, trapped on San Cristobal, in the Galapagos Islands, where there's a 2pm-5am curfew and no way in or out.

“We're stocked up on food we definitely feel really safe in our current environment, the locals are really tense but it's not threatening it's not like we feel endangered,” Kate Thomson said.

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