Family wait to bury dad in Niue
‘‘We just want to bury our sweet dad . . . please let us get on a flight.’’
Priscilla Foliola
An Auckland family have been waiting since July to take their beloved dad home to Niue for a burial.
Priscilla Foliola, who grew up in West Auckland but now lives in Melbourne, Australia, said she has been trying ‘‘for months’’ to have her dad repatriated to his homeland.
Foliola received a phone call in late June telling her she needed to come home because her dad was in hospital.
Foliola said her father had a cardiac arrest while helping his sister move house. He was put into an induced coma, and died on July 6.
After being granted a travel exemption, Foliola arrived just in time to make the decision for her father, 58-year-old Sunday Foliola’s ventilator to be shut off.
In the following months Foliola said she had been back and forth with the Government in Niue on how to have her dad’s body repatriated for burial.
Flights into the island nation were limited because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Foliola said she contacted the Niue Government on July 16, when she was asked to put in a request in writing.
That request was denied, and she was given a new set of requirements, she said, and had to send documents proving her father was from Niue.
In August, the travel plans were approved for her dad and immediate family, and flight dates were set, but as Auckland went into level 4 lockdown, Foliola was told the flights were cancelled.
A spokesman for the office of the secretary to Government of Niue said there was a backlog of almost 200 passengers waiting to return to the island.
’’The number of passengers to Niue per fortnightly passenger flight has been reduced significantly to less than 30, and home quarantine suspended.
‘‘We’ve been in contact with this family, and it’s unfortunate the Delta variant has meant increased border measures, which we appreciate has been frustrating for everyone currently in Auckland awaiting return to the island.’’
Sunday Foliola had grown up in Niue and moved to Rānui in West Auckland in his teens. During the past couple of years he had gone back to Niue and split time between the two countries as he prepared a house on the island where he could live when he retired.
Foliola said her father’s death had been very unexpected for the family because he had seemed ‘‘as fit as a fiddle’’.
‘‘It was a shock. All of us siblings were living overseas at that point too, in Sydney, Melbourne and California, so we all had to scramble to get back to New Zealand.’’
Foliola missed her dad immensely, she said, and he used to always send out a family email every morning just to greet them all and say a daily prayer.
She said 19 members of the family were now living in the family home in West Auckland while they waited to head over to the island.
Her dad’s body was currently waiting at Tipene’s Funeral Home in Onehunga, and she worried about how much longer they could wait, she said.
‘‘My poor dad is just waiting there. It’s been horrific. But Niue is his home, and it’s where he wanted to spend his retirement, so it’s important to us to get him there.
‘‘We just want to bury our sweet dad,’’ she said, ‘‘please let us get on a flight.’’