Can anyone help my friend?

It is harrowing to see the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. So many innocent people are caught in the crossfire, including one of my oldest friends, Jodie.

Jodie is living in Jordan and can’t leave because a travel ban has placed on her son by his bitter Jordanian father – Jodie’s ex-husband – who is living safely in Australia.

Missiles are flying over Jodie’s apartment and the Jordanian government is activating bomb shelters to protect its people. Jodie is getting desperate and begging for help to bring her son home.

The last time rockets flew over, she called the DFAT emergency line in Canberra. She was told she could leave Jordan but her son could not, despite them both being born in Australia.

The Australian Government recently paid for Jodie’s legal fees to return to court and apply for permission for her son to travel, but she is still in limbo.

She posted an article on Facebook over the weekend about a Pakistani Australian citizen who had been jailed for taking his wife and child to Pakistan and abandoning them there while retaining the child’s Australian passport.

DFAT and the AFP were able to facilitate the mother and child’s return within six months. However, Jodie’s son has been unable to leave Jordan for 10 years and Jodie has lived there for more than seven years to support him.

She asks: “How can there be a travel ban on a child when the other parent is not even in Jordan, but is in Australia living his best life?

“If he was here taking care of his son and wanted to keep him with him in HIS home country, I’d be able to come to terms with that somehow. But I cannot and will not ever be able to make sense of this.

“I need help. I need anyone that can to make a call to their local MP, contact any journo they know, call anyone who they think could help push this along to get it out there that if this war gets worse, we are in danger.”

The Australian embassy says it wants to help her, but cannot go against Jordanian laws.

“I understand this, but this travel ban should only be valid if the father is in Jordan,” she says in her Facebook post.

“We spent all day and night scared with sirens and rockets flying over our city to and from Israel and Iran. We are Australian and we belong there.”

Her son can’t even leave Jordan on a holiday. His name is on all the borders exiting the country due to the travel ban.

What she is facing is beyond my comprehension and I don’t know what to do.

I contacted a journalist who I thought might be able to help, but nothing has come of it as yet.

Most of my old cohort are no longer working in the industry. Perhaps someone will read this post and lend a hand.

Please let me know if you have any advice for Jodie or know someone who might.