Aussie lady stranded within the Middle East amid Iran battle slams the Albanese authorities’s response

A stranded Aussie traveller has slammed the Australian government for abandoning its citizens in the midst of the US-Iran war, claiming she was ‘dumped’ in Riyadh by consular officials and left to fend for herself. 

Trina Hockley has claimed there is no way for her to get home after she became stranded in Doha, in Qatar, as fighting escalated through the Middle East on Sunday. 

Ms Hockley had been on her way to Helsinki, Finland, when the war broke out but now she says it is becoming impossible for her to get home. 

When she arrived in Doha, Ms Hockley said the city had already been ‘abandoned’ on Tuesday.

Since then, she and dozens of others have been stuck trying to find their way back to Australia.

For the most part this process has been done without the assistance of the government, she said. 

While the Australian government through DFAT did facilitate her passage through to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia by bus, the rest has been up to her. 

Ms Hockley said she was now in a competition with thousands of other Australians trying to get home.

Trina Hockley is stuck in the middle east amongst the US-Iran war 

Ms Hockley says the Australian government has left her to deal with the situation herself (pictured is Tehran, Iran on Sunday)

Foreign Minister Penny Wong had previously said the Albanese government was focused on getting Australians home and supporting regional stability.

‘The Australian government doesn’t want to know us so we’re on our own,’ Ms Hockley told 9News.

‘[The next step is] up to each individual traveller, I mean I’ve managed so far to get a flight through to Bangkok via Oman. I haven’t got Bangkok to Australia yet.

‘The costs are exorbitant and everyone’s fighting to do the same thing, there’s no help whatsoever.’

Ms Hockley said her flight from Oman to Bangkok had cost her $7,000 alone.   

‘Every other country has repatriated their citizens either with charter flights or mass bookings. No one is doing this to their citizens, just dumping them in Riyadh and saying ‘good luck’,’ she said.

Along the 13-hour bus trip from Qatar to Saudi Arabia Ms Hockley said she was fed only an apple, sandwich and some chocolate biscuits.

Although she said there was an Australian official on the bus for two-thirds of the ride apparently they left before any customs checks between countries, Ms Hockley said.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has said her focus is on getting Australians home 

Thousands of Australians are still stuck in the region (pictured is Tehran on Sunday)

‘Now everyone who was on that bus is competing for flights from Oman towards wherever else they are able to manage.’

This means that each traveller could be out of pocket by thousands of dollars on top of being stuck in a warzone. 

The transport is also extremely slow as the bus between Doha and Riyadh took more than five hours to traverse 100km, Ms Hockley said. 

On the same program that she appeared on, the reporter interviewing Ms Hockley also said both the Foreign Minister and Assistant Foreign Minister had declined to appear. 

The Foreign Minister previously said Iranian strikes had disrupted air routes across the Middle East, triggering one of Australia’s largest-ever peacetime consular operations.

Wong revealed more than 115,000 Australians were in the region when the crisis began, prompting the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to open emergency registration portals and organise evacuation pathways across multiple countries.

‘This is a very big consular effort,’ she said.

Wong also confirmed that around 11,000 Australians had already been assessed as eligible for evacuation. 

Nine flights have departed Dubai for Australia thus far, with more scheduled.