Key Points
- Foreign Minister Penny Wong says DFAT is facing one of the largest consular operations in the region.
- Australian stranded in the Middle East criticises the Australian government for keeping them waiting on the ground.
An Australian woman now trapped in Doha has recalled the moment their plane turned back midair as the United States and Israel launched missiles against Iran on Saturday, beginning a regional conflict that continues to escalate.
Iran struck nine countries in the Middle East with US bases in response, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Nearly all flights out of the region have been grounded, and Australians have recalled being stranded and watching Iranian missiles fly over cities considered safe havens.
Penny Milton was stopping in Doha en route to Italy with her children to watch the Milan-Cortina Paralympic Games on 6 March, where her husband Michael is competing.
Michael Milton is Australia's most-decorated winter Paralympian, having won 11 medals including six golds across six Olympics, and holds the record as the fastest skier in Australian history.
As the family were mid-air on the way to Venice, the plane suddenly turned around as it neared the Iraq border.
Milton realised something was very wrong, but had no phone signal or information about what exactly forced the flight to ground.
"I realised that the plane had changed direction, which I thought was kind of odd, and then it started to circle. And then the pilot came over the speaker and said that the Iraqi airspace is closed and that we were just circling, waiting for instructions from Qatar Airways to see what would happen next and where we needed to go," she told SBS News.
The plane circled the skies above Qatar for half an hour, then passengers were told they were being forced to return to Doha.
"It wasn't until we landed and then we got close enough to the terminal for people to get wifi back that all of the alerts to everybody's phones started coming in.
"(The alert messages) were very loud. And at first we didn't know what they were, and they were in Arabic, but there were Arabic speakers on the plane who told us it was a missile alert."
Milton said her first concerns were for her kids.
"It's pretty frightening, missiles being shot, missiles in the air, that's pretty scary stuff," she told SBS News.
"We just had a meal on the plane, everything seemed to be going fine, and then the world really turned upside down for lots of people."
While she was on a call with SBS News from her hotel, Milton received another missile alert, shown below.
During parliamentary question time on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed that around 11,000 Australians travel through the Middle East on average per day, and said the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) believes there are up to 115,000 Australians in the region.
SBS News also spoke to an Australian man who lives in Dubai, who requested anonymity because he said people are being threatened with fines for speaking about Iran's attacks on the UAE.
The man, who's lived and worked in Dubai for a year, described the country "a safe haven", but said that watching missiles above him served as "a stark reminder that the region as a whole is unstable."
"I am most concerned about prolonged conflict in the region and the randomness of war. Nowhere feels fully safe," he said.
He also described how he could hear the "incredibly loud" sounds at missile intercepts. "The windows shake. It feels like we could be dragged further in."
He was also concerned by the announcement from US President Donald Trump, who said on Tuesday that while he expected the war on Iran would last four or five weeks, the conflict could potentially last longer.
"I plan on staying to try and help families in the region, but would recommend people leave before it escalates further," he said.
He also criticised the Australian government for not sending updates through the DFAT crisis portal.
"The silence is deafening. The US has alerted all expats to leave the region. While calling the Australian embassy, we've been told to wait for advice."
Wong said DFAT was facing the largest consular operation they had ever faced in the region.
"The number of affected Australians dwarfs any consular operation the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has ever conducted," she said.
Wong said she’d spoken to the UAE's deputy prime minister Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum on Tuesday to express solidarity.
"I thanked him for supporting Australians impacted by travel disruptions including the UAE's provision of accommodation and meals for Australians," she said.
Having temporarily settled in a hotel with her children, Milton hoped they could still carry on their original plan of watching her husband competing in Cortina.
"We try to be optimistic and think that our situation is okay. I think there's a lot of people in this region who are in far more dire circumstances than we are, and I think we just need to be patient," she said.
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