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RNZ News
03-07-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Stranded in hell: How people are extracted from war zones
Photo: JACK GUEZ It is dangerous, diplomatically delicate and extremely expensive. Getting a New Zealander out of a war zone can cost $1 million if they're injured. It often takes high level negotiations with top secret contacts and New Zealand often has to ask favours of other friendly countries to get its citizens to safety. "It's a very tricky business to exfiltrate or extract or save New Zealanders abroad in other countries' jurisdictions," says Stephen Hoadley, retired Auckland University professor of political science. "They are hosts to New Zealanders but they don't expect that to be abused by New Zealand flying in and moving around the countryside ignoring local sensitivities." Hoadley says the New Zealand government faces pressure from many corners when citizens are caught in conflict zones and it often has scant information about an operation because things are changing by the hour. "About half of New Zealanders never bother to register in a foreign country and of course they're vulnerable, more at risk because MFAT cannot contact them, their families cannot contact them often and then the families will ring up the Minister of Foreign Affairs desperate to contact their son, daughter, brother, sister in a war zone and this puts a lot of pressure on the minister, the ministry, the bureaucrats and others." Jerusalem-based Samoan Vincent Schmidt tells The Detail how he used his contacts as a security officer for the United Nations to get a young Samoan student to safety after she was stranded in Israel last week. But it took several days and involved the Samoan ambassador in Belgium and the government back in Apia to get Polino Falevaai home. Schmidt explains how they all communicated by WhatsApp, as Falevaai travelled by bus for four to five hours over the border into Egypt, encountering a number of checkpoints before she faced a two-day wait in a chaotic Cairo airport. "There were a couple of flights that got cancelled a couple of minutes before she had to board the plan but because of the checkpoints they got delayed, there was a miscommunication with the school. Yeah, there were a lot of challenges," says Schmidt ReliefAid humanitarian agency founder Mike Seawright recalls a high risk situation in Syria under the brutal Assad regime when he had to evacuate 100 workers at a hospital close to the front line. They had to flee in minutes but one doctor refused to go. "I'm saying to the guy, 'you don't get an option here, you are relocating no matter what you think. Get on that truck, you're putting other lives at risk here, we'll come back as soon as we can but at this point we don't know if hell on earth is going to open up around this clinic, this hospital'," says Seawright. Until recently he says, it was impossible to get insurance for his workers in hotspots such as Ukraine, Gaza and Afghanistan, making the delivery of aid and the care of his team even more costly. That added to the complications of managing teams of workers that were both local and international. Seawright says Gaza is by far the riskiest location right now. "When we started in Gaza we started with a team of nine in the north ... of the nine, seven are now dead, and two are severely injured. Even our team in Ukraine and our team in Syria ... they tell us to be careful in Gaza. Even places like Ukraine which in itself is extremely dangerous." Security expert James Robertson of International SOS says working with clients in the Middle East has been "intense". One of the challenging parts is pulling together a disparate group of people and preparing them for a difficult border crossing. "When you're trying to co-ordinate lots of different clients, each of whom has a different risk tolerance, a different appetite for uncertainty and friction, I suppose, trying to co-ordinate them together to make a response on the ground can be pretty tricky." Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here . You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter .
RNZ News
01-07-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Samoan in Jersualem says businesses are slowly opening
Smoke billows from a site in the city of Haifa on 16 June 2025 following a fresh barrage of Iranian missiles. Photo: Ahmad Gharabli / AFP A Samoan security officer in Israel says businesses are starting to reopen in Jerusalem, following a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Vincent Schimdt was instrumental in helping Samoan agricultural student Polino Falevaai return safely home. Speaking to Pacific Waves , he said he was not sure but he believed there were still Pacific Islanders in the town with the agriculture school. Both Israel and Iran had confirmed the ceasefire after it was announced by US president Donald Trump last week. There were early accusations and reports of violation but it has since appeared to hold. Schmidt said both countries are monitoring the situation, as is the US, and so far things were fine, but it's unpredictable. "Things can happen at any time. Rockets can fly at any time. So here in Jerusalem, slowly, slowly, business opening up. I see some people, the houses, family, they start walking on the streets. "There's no movements at all during the war." Falevaai arrived in Apia on Saturday. Schmidt said they had to look at getting her out via land travel rather than flying. Polino Falevaai, holding cheque, at AICAT - the Arava International Center for Agriculture Training. Photo: Scientific Research Organisation of Samoa/Facebook "I think that the hardest part is because airspace was locked down, so there was no more airlines due to depart and entering the airspace of Israel." He said he understands it took her four days to get to Samoa. "They have a road trip from her place .... actually go through the border, to cross the border down south of Israel, to go to Cairo. "Knowing like all those places have a lot of checkpoints, a lot of military checkpoints; I think she went through that. And we keep telling her, like, hey, that's your way home." Schmidt oversees security and said he stayed on top of communication. "Make sure there's a bomb shelter for safety, you know, because I'm security here. So I was so concerned about our people, and especially her." Meanwhile, the Solomon Islands government said their citizens in the Middle East are safe, and help is on the way. Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Shanel Agovaka said they are working closely with Australian and Papua New Guinean diplomats. There are five students still in the country who attended agricultural college in southern Israel. Agovaka said there is also one student in Qatar and a number of workers in the United Arab Emirates.
