Lockdown leaves family stuck in SA

AN AUSTRALIAN family stuck in South Africa are desperately trying to return home so their nine-month-old daughter can have surgery for a heart defect. The family have had several flights back to Australia cancelled, because of renewed Covid-19 restrictions.

Bill and Cristal Tsouvalas were living in South Africa when the Australian government urged citizens to come home at the end of March, the Daily Mail reported.

At the time the Tsouvalas could not return home, as they said they needed time to pack up their lives.

Initially the family were granted a repatriation flight, but were turned away when they arrived in Pretoria. One of the cancelled flights cost them $23 000 (R276 000).

Tsouvalas has criticised what he called the “unfair caps” placed on how many people can return to Australia in a week. Tsouvalas’s home city of Adelaide has a limit of 500 international arrivals a week. |