Last modified on Fri 14 May 2021 16.01 EDT
Tony Sammartino has no idea when he will next hug his three-year-old daughter, but itâs almost guaranteed it wonât be for another year at the earliest.
âThese are the best years of her life, and they should be the best of mine too. And theyâre slipping away.â
Tony hasnât seen Maria Teresa, nor her mother and his partner, Maria Pena, since March 2020, when he was in the Philippines with their other daughter, Liliana.
Before the pandemic, the family of four split their lives between Melbourne and Subic, a coastal city north-west of Manila, spending roughly half a year in each parentâs home country.
They arrived in December, before the current outbreak, but Vamshi is furious that the information he provided about his motherâs condition was enough for his exit exemption but not enough for her to be allowed to travel to Australia to stay with them.
âI am fighting an avoidable war. I would have been happily living in Australia amidst this second wave in India if my mother was given exemption,â Vamshi said.
Now the three of them are stuck in the middle of Indiaâs devastating outbreak.
Vamshi, 32, fears for his familyâs safety if they contract Covid. His in-laws and one of his uncles has contracted coronavirus, and his aunt died from the virus recently.
‘Rejected and betrayed’: Australians stranded in India speak of heartbreak Elias Visontay and Naaman Zhou
The backlash has been fierce in the days since the Australian government moved to make it a criminal offence for its citizens to return from Covid-ravaged India.
Members of the Morrison government have denounced their own policy, while medical experts and international human rights groups, including the United Nations, have called for an immediate reversal of the Biosecurity Act determination.
Here are some of their stories.
Shruthi and Vamshi Parepalli – stranded in Hyderabad
Melbourne man Vamshi Parepalli had been desperately trying to get an exemption to allow his mother, who is not an Australian citizen or permanent resident, to enter Australia during the pandemic to be with him and his wife Shruthi.