“There are a million people here,” a mother says to her son pulling him through the large crowd that has gathered in Sydney Airport as repatriated Australians arrive home from Lebanon.
As the first of the travellers from a repatriation flight via Doha pass through the mechanic doors, the already loud crowd erupts in applause and their welcome home balloons jostle when they do.
Families reunite at Sydney International Airport as the first DFAT-assisted repatriation flight arrives from Lebanon.Credit: Louie Douvis
Joseph Kazzi, 84, sat in a car hurtling North to Beirut Airport as missiles flew overhead. When his neighbour eventually agreed to drive him there, he made the 15-minute trip in 10 and called it the “scariest drive of his life”.
On Monday, Kazzi’s daughter, Samara, waited for him in terminal one of Sydney’s International Airport for his arrival on the first repatriation flight out of the now war-torn Lebanon.
The small town that he’s from, Jiyeh, lies South of Beirut. The same night he fled, it was bombed.
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“He’s really relieved,” Samara, 50, said of her father who is a diabetic and was struggling to buy medicine in Lebanon as the conflict escalated and forced shortages. “It was horrible,” she said. “He just made it in time.”
Mohammed Hodroj, 18, spent his Sunday at the pro-Palestine rally in the city. A day later, he’s at the international terminal to welcome his uncle to Sydney on the first repatriation flight out of Beirut.
“Anyone that’s Muslim is angry,” he said of the war. More of his family, including his grandparents are still there, stuck trying to secure a visa to leave.
“It’s better than him staying there… he might get killed. It’s safer for him here,” Hodroj said.
When the conflict ends, Hodroj wants to go back to Lebanon, the country he’s visited three times and says he loves as much as Australia.
“I hope for all of this to stop. We don’t want war.”
Source Agencies
