After more than a year separated from his baby daughter by travel bans, Hardip Narang finally had a glimmer of hope.
A flight had been booked for 25 May to bring his 18-month old daughter to Australia with her grandparents after she became trapped in India in March last year when international borders slammed shut.
But that hope was extinguished this week when the Australian government announced as the COVID-19 crisis in the country deepens.
Mr Narang's flight was immediately cancelled and the Melbourne chef now fears it could be many more months until he is able to see his Australian daughter, who has lived the vast majority of her life with her grandparents in Mumbai.
“She thinks my parents are her mother and father, that’s what she believes now because they are bringing her up,” the 36-year-old told SBS News.
“We haven’t seen her first steps, we haven’t seen her teething, we haven’t seen those sleepless nights.”
The Narang family before they were separated. Source: Supplied
Mr Narang’s daughter, Ziva, travelled with her mother and older sister to visit family in Mumbai when she was just two months old.
The family was meant to return to Australia in March last year with Mr Narang’s parents, but when his mother fell ill and couldn’t travel, the decision was made for Ziva to remain with her grandparents who would bring her to Australia shortly after.
But then the borders closed. “We couldn’t get our parents in, because they were not Australian citizens,” Mr Narang said. “We waited, we thought everything might settle down after a while … but things didn’t work out that way.”
Since then, Mr Narang was able to secure an exemption for his parents to travel to Australia - but he then faced the challenge of finding a flight. When a new flight was announced, he said tickets would be sold out within minutes.
“We finally had that hope alive, that they were coming, we booked those tickets and everything,” he said. “But now that’s also gone.”
Little Ziva is among about 9,000 Australians currently stranded in India hoping to return home. Of them, 650 are classed as vulnerable.
India's after more than 3,000 fatalities were reported in 24 hours for the first time, according to health ministry data.
The country of 1.3 billion has now reported 18 million infections, including 360,000 recorded in the last day, pushing the health care system to its limits. In the capital, New Delhi, hospitals have run out of oxygen and patients are being forced to share beds.
In the city of Mumbai, where Ziva is living, there are more than 75,000 active cases. Mr Narang is fearful his mother will not survive COVID-19 due to pre-existing health conditions, meaning no one will be left to look after his daughter.
Australian permanent resident Gurpreet Singh is also hoping to be reunited with his pregnant wife and daughter in Perth after he was caught in the flight suspension during a two-week trip back to India for his father’s funeral.
The 37-year-old IT worker arrived in Punjab, in northern India, earlier this month with a return flight booked but it was cancelled in the lead up to yesterday’s announcement.
He is now worried the suspension will be extended, leaving his wife, who is seven months pregnant, to look after their six-year-old daughter alone.
“Her doctors, GPs, midwives have all recommended that someone should always be there in case … she needs hospitalisation,” he said.
“Right now, she’s okay, but there are some complications. She has to visit hospitals quite frequently, and being with a child and doing the school drops is very, very tough for her right now.”
Mr Singh says there are very few COVID-19 cases being detected where he is, but all future flight bookings home disappeared “all of a sudden”.
Gurpreet Singh, who is trapped in India, with his wife and daughter. Source: Supplied
"I had to come to India because I was the only son of my father, and there's no one to do the funeral process," he said. "I thought that I would come back as soon as the funeral was over and things were settled in India, but this is very, very, very terrible news."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday said the government had not abandoned Australians trying to return home from India, vowing to restore repatriation flights as soon as possible.
"I don’t see this as a problem that we are trying to solve - I see this as a group of people we are trying to help,” he said.
He also announced plans to send oxygen supplies, ventilators and personal protective equipment to the country to assist with their emergency response.
Immigration Minister Alex Hawke told SBS News on Wednesday the government was working within the current health advice and the pandemic was “not a static situation”.
“We are aware of the difficult situation that many people are in or have found themselves in through no fault of their own sometimes,” he said.
“Sometimes people have been unlucky, and sometimes people have made their own choices as they move around the world and landed in a bad situation.”
But Amar Singh, of Turbans 4 Australia, says the government is not doing enough to help Australians caught up in the crisis.
“We have to look at the human side of this,” he said. “There are people who are separated from their families, from their kids, for over 12 months.
"How do you explain to a four or five-year-old child that dad is not home because he can’t fly back?”
Additional reporting by Anna Henderson.
