SYDNEY, March 2 — Australia said today it has 115,000 nationals in the Middle East who are unable to fly out because of airspace closures during the conflict unleashed by US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
The government said it hoped commercial flights would resume to help Australians in the region to flee.
“We have about 115,000 Australians in the region. So that is a lot of people. The best way to get them home would be for commercial flights to return, because that is at scale,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong told reporters.
“There’s conflict in the region. We’ve seen loss of life across the region, and airspace is not open. So, whether or not it is an Australian flight or a commercial flight, the flights are not able to occur.”
Asked if Australia would repatriate people, she said the government wanted to see if commercial flights would resume and that it was “engaging” with airlines.
The government set up an online crisis portal to register citizens and permanent residents, as well as their immediate families, who were in Israel, Iran, Qatar or the United Arab Emirates, she said.
The foreign minister said US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were a matter for the United States and Israel to explain.
“No one mourns the death of the supreme leader,” she added.
“This is a man who was responsible for a regime that brutally murdered its own people in an attempt to retain authority.” — AFP
