A handful of Australians have landed in Sydney after being evacuated from Egypt, but many more have yet to escape as violent anti-government protests rock the nation.
Emotions ran high at Sydney's Kingsford-Smith international airport, as a small group of travellers disembarked a Qantas flight from Frankfurt carrying the evacuees.
Almost 200 Australians boarded a government-chartered emergency jet to Frankfurt from Cairo on Wednesday, with the remainder yet to arrive subject to available seats on Qantas flights in the coming days.
However, many of those who managed to evacuate blamed Australian officials for others who had wanted to flee but were left behind.
The Qantas jet has the capacity to carry up to 412 passengers, but it arrived in Frankfurt half empty.
While some of the stranded passengers awaited additional flights organised by the government, others had to make their own way back home, at enormous financial and emotional cost.
Waleed Nassar and his family were in Alexandria, cut off from Cairo due to curfews and dangerous travel conditions.
Mr Nassar says Australian officials called him at 4:00am, telling him an emergency flight would leave Alexandria for Amman, Jordan, the following day.
However, there was no guarantee there would be places on the plane for Mr Nassar, his wife and three daughters, Mr Nassar said.
He added that the family was also told that once they reached Amman, they would be "on their own."
In the meantime, Mr Nassar secured seats on a different airline after exhaustive efforts, at a cost of almost $10,000.
He said he was forced to make a split-second decision between paying for the seats, or risking the lack of places on the government flight.
Mr Nassar also said he feared landing in Jordan with his family because the PM fired the government there earlier this week anticipating protests like those in Egypt.
SBS has contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs and is awaiting their response to the allegations of bungling the evacuation efforts.
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd earlier told the ABC he had called on his Egyptian counterpart to assist Australia in its attempts to evacuate citizens.
The death toll from fierce riots between anti-government protesters and supporters of President Hosni Mubarak's regime has risen since Mubarak announced he would step down - but only at the next elections in September.
The riots demanding his resignation were prompted by similar ones in Tunisia last month, in which dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali was ousted after decades in power.
Similar protests have spread across the Muslim world over the past fortnight, with unrest in Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, Algeria, Oman and others.
Protests began in Cairo's Tahrir Square early last week, with escalating violence prompting a foreign exodus from Egypt. The death toll was estimated more than 125 at the time of publishing, though reliable information was difficult to obtain due to telecommunications blackouts.
The United Nations has also begun to evacuate much of its Egypt-based staff, and the US, Russia, India and China have effected extensive evacuation operations.
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