Kiwis stuck in India face growing unrest
Hundreds of Kiwis stuck in India are in danger as the locked-down country faces civil unrest, a repatriated backpacker says.
Christchurch construction worker Liam Smedley, 29, and a group of European friends experienced violence and abuse from locals as they tried to escape the coronavirus chaos. While other countries are repatriating their travellers, Smedley says Kiwis willing to pay for mercy flights are getting no help from home.
‘‘All the Kiwis need to get out of India ... it is probably the most dangerous place to be right now.’’
He got on a German mercy flight and believes he was the last Australasian to escape India.
Smedley arrived in Guwahati at the start of March and the country ‘‘rapidly’’ went into lockdown on March 25.
TVNZ reported the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) had 802 Kiwis registered in India on March 31. MFAT has been approached for comment.
Smedley emailed the High Commission in India after returning, saying it should be ‘‘pushing for mercy’’ for Kiwis relying on them for safety.
While trapped, Smedley called the embassy several times, and was told to ‘‘take shelter where you are’’. But the dangers became evident, so he and a group of new European friends hired a car to drive 26 hours – begging police at state border checkpoints along the way – to Kolkata to catch the German mercy flight. They made it just in time and after the flight to Frankfurt, Smedley caught a Qatar Airways flight to Auckland, arriving on Friday.
He saw many ‘‘desperate’’ Indians arguing with police and being hit with sticks. When they arrived in Kolkata, the group was surrounded and threatened for three hours by locals next to a Couchsurfing property they intended to stay at.
‘‘They all think foreigners have [Covid-19]. We went to leave and about 40 of them blocked the street not letting us leave.
‘‘The whole neighbourhood were out there with steel poles and scary guys yelling at us.’’
The crowd demanded the group get out of the car but they refused. They managed to drive away when police intervened.
His group called every
European embassy for help to escape. Luckily, the German embassy stepped up.
His ‘‘unforgettable’’ 55-hourlong, $3000 journey home will end with him going home to family in the Far North once his 14-day quarantine in an Auckland hotel is up. Smedley is part of the Facebook group Covid 19 – Kiwis stuck in India, which has 42 members and growing.
Morag Lavich is desperately trying to get her parents Don, 72, and Marian Stuart, 69, home from New Delhi after they were stranded a week into a Kiwioperated tour.
‘‘I am absolutely terrified of what is going to happen or, brutally, that they are not going to make it out of there.’’
Her parents felt relatively safe from coronavirus but ‘‘absolutely isolated from any support networks’’. Her father had a heart condition and she worried the stress could kill him.
The tour guide and three others on the tour had made it home.
Her parents had already spent thousands on about three cancelled flights out.
‘‘All the Kiwis need to get out of India ... it is probably the most dangerous place to be right now.’’ Liam Smedley, pictured early last month at the Holi festival in India’s Guwahati, before the country went into lockdown.