Wong dispatches crisis squads to Middle East to help stranded Australians – but no rescue planes yet

Six crisis teams will be dispatched to the Middle East to help stranded travellers and expats, as the first commercial flight to Australia is due to arrive in Sydney late Wednesday night.

Warning that the conflict was “spreading and intensifying” as Iranians bombarded 10 other nations in retaliation for US and Israeli attacks on the rogue nation since the weekend, Wong said the teams were sent to help deal with the demand for help in an “unprecedented situation”.

“It is not limited, and it is not contained in the way that we have seen previously, which is why we see so many countries affected and so many travellers disrupted,” she said.

In a terse press conference, Wing pushed back at Coalition criticisms that Australians didnt get the same level of warning delivered to families of the diplomatic corps in Lebanon and Israel when they evacuated a week ago.

“We certainly did not know that Iran was going to hit 10 countries in the region. And you know, for those who are criticising, if they think they knew that, then they probably should have told us,” she said.

“There were some 41 different warnings, updates on travel advice about the possibility of conflict or instability in the Middle East. What I would say to Australians is… please look at their travel advice.”

Emirates flight EK414 took off from Dubai shortly after 9.20am (AEDT) and is set to land in Sydney after 10.30pm on Wednesday, as the Australian Defence Force confirmed they were preparing to help evacuate Australians stranded in the Middle East, amid calls from the opposition for “every option” to be considered.

Speaking to ABC Radio National on Wednesday morning, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said: “This is a consular crisis that dwarfs any that Australia has had to deal with in terms of numbers of people.

“The foreign minister of the Arab Emirates explained to me that around 24,000 Australians are in his country. We discussed when I spoke with him … that the best way to get people out is to get commercial flights started.”

Since the closure of airspace over the Middle East on Saturday evening (AEDT), government ministers have consistently argued that commercial flights are the most practical way for the 115,000 stranded Australians to return home.

The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain have all either announced or begun operating charter flights to return stranded citizens. The United States has urged Americans to use available commercial transport to exit the region.

Speaking to journalists at Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Ted O’Brien said the government had betrayed Australian citizens by offering different travel guidance to diplomats and tourists in the lead-up to the joint US-Israeli strikes.

“Australia should be looking at every option to ensure that the 115,000 Australians in the Middle East are kept safe, but most importantly, they can be evacuated. This is a very dangerous region. There has been double standards by the government in how they treat the Australian people on this that is unacceptable,” O’Brien said.

“On the 25th of February, the government decided that the risk was so high that diplomats [and] their dependents should be evacuated from the region, but it took three more days and over 100 ballistic missiles before the government treated the everyday Australian public in the same way. It took three days and over 100 ballistic missiles before the government changed their travel advice to do not travel. That is not acceptable.”

Wong did note that Australia was exploring further options for bringing home Australians, but argued that commercial airlines were the most effective way to bring home the tens of thousands looking to leave the region.

In a statement on Wednesday, the ADF said: “Defence remains ready to support DFAT-led whole-of-government contingency planning.”

A defence force task force is exploring options for mass evacuations.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last night spoke to Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE and thanked him for the hospitality shown to Australians stranded in the Emirates, and discussed the imperative of restarting commercial flights. About 11,000 Australians transit through the major international hub at any time.

Among the stranded travellers were Australians Chloe and Cinty – both of whom asked that their second names not be published – who departed Sydney for Madrid on Friday night, less than 24 hours before the Trump administration’s Operation Epic Fury began. They were meant to stay in Abu Dhabi for nine hours, which has now stretched beyond three nights as their flights remain cancelled.

“We were sitting at the gate and all of a sudden, Spanish passengers started getting all of these intense phone notifications and alarms from their phones, safety alerts, we had no idea what was going on, and people started to panic at that point,” Chloe said.

“[Some were] told to stay from windows, avoid glass as a safety precaution … we stayed put at the gate and were alert from that point, still thinking in a few hours we might get out.”

Cinty described “mayhem” in the arrivals terminal, as bags were dumped across the floor while travellers scrambled to rearrange plans thrown into jeopardy.

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