{"id":314345,"date":"2026-03-05T13:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T13:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/314345\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T13:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T13:36:09","slug":"us-israel-attacks-on-iran-new-zealand-family-in-kuwait-wait-to-hear-if-they-can-return-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/314345\/","title":{"rendered":"US, Israel attacks on Iran: New Zealand family in Kuwait wait to hear if they can return home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sinsemillia Magele and Sage Magele work as teachers. The children\u2019s aunt, Pauline Toleafoa, is also with them, having moved in 2020.<\/p>\n

But now the family were looking to return home.<\/p>\n

Sinsemillia Magele said it\u2019s like Covid 2.0, \u201cwith missiles and sirens. We just need to keep that routine going, and find ways to be calm, but also not ignore the situation that\u2019s going on\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to keep normality as much as we can, stay in routine, try not to run to the window every time we hear bangs and sirens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SinsemilliaSinsemillia Magele’s family in Kuwait are anxious to return home amid ongoing missile threats.<\/p>\n

RNZ spoke to Magele on Thursday morning NZT, or shortly after midnight in Kuwait.<\/p>\n

The hour of the phone call was not a bother. It is when the sirens go off, and the missiles fly over. The family were wide awake.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can see it from our apartment building. The missiles come over us from Iran, and then they\u2019re intercepted pretty much above our building.<\/a> So we feel the shakes, the windows are moving, the booms are loud, and then you have the sirens going on in the background,\u201d Magele said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it is scarily becoming a little bit normal. This morning, when the sirens started going off, I was like \u2018be quiet, just let us sleep for a little bit longer\u2019. And obviously, that must be a tactic as well, just to keep us wide awake, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

The children were becoming increasingly nervous and wanting to return home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are struggling. They don\u2019t know how to help and they can\u2019t really help. They want to get us out of here, but I think the whole explaining to them the airspaces are closed, like we can\u2019t go anywhere, we can\u2019t and it\u2019s not safe to travel,\u201d Magele said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t move, it\u2019s not safe. So they just can\u2019t comprehend in their minds, they\u2019re like \u2018get out\u2019. But the reality when you\u2019re over here, like we can\u2019t, and it\u2019s not like the movies. They\u2019re not going to send in a helicopter to land in front of our building, take us home, like it\u2019s just the reality of being here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Defence Force will deploy planes to the Middle East for evacuation operations.<\/p>\n

Kuwait\u2019s Health Ministry has confirmed an 11-year-old girl was killed by falling debris.<\/p>\n

Magele said the girl was from a sister school.<\/p>\n

Keeping a routine has been paramount, especially for the children, she said.<\/p>\n

The parents make sure they are logged on to school in the morning, have lunch, take daily workouts or throw a rugby ball around, take mid-afternoon naps and are in constant contact with family back home.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of our energy at the moment is making sure that they\u2019re okay, because this is a whole other world to them. Us moving here in the first place was crazy to them, so a lot of our time and energy goes into reassuring them that we\u2019re okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prayer and scripture have also been important, particularly from Toleafoa.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s always making sure that scriptures are getting through to us, and her family back home are fasting and praying daily for us. So that gives us definitely a big sense of comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like other Gulf states, Kuwait has a large expatriate population. Magele said the community was \u201cspiralling\u201d and the family were trying to shield themselves from that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re New Zealanders, we\u2019re M\u0101ori, we\u2019re Samoan. We\u2019re also there for our community because they\u2019ve helped us through everything here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Government is yet to confirm where the two planes will be deployed, although Defence Minister Judith Collins said the location would be selected \u201ctaking safety and other practical factors\u201d into account.<\/p>\n

Operational security has meant there would be limits on exactly how public the information will be made, with regard to when and where the planes would be deployed.<\/p>\n

Magele said some tourist companies in Kuwait were \u201cmaking a lot of money off this\u201d by taking buses of people into Saudi Arabia, but she saw that as too much of a risk, especially if they still could not get a flight out.<\/p>\n

The largest share of New Zealanders registered on SafeTravel are in the United Arab Emirates, which Magele said was either a 12-hour drive or an hour-and-a-half long flight, although again, there were no flights at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf evacuation support becomes available, we would absolutely want to return home. Without a doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kuwait has been good to them.<\/p>\n

The children, now 13 and 10, have grown up as \u201cglobal citizens\u201d and the country has provided them many opportunities.<\/p>\n

But a recent shake had put things into perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what? There was, the other morning, it was about 6.20am and there was just a huge bang. And I jumped up and said \u2018this is not the normal life I wanted for my children\u2019. This is not normal. This is not what I want for them, not coming from New Zealand, Aotearoa, not coming from Samoa. We don\u2019t want this for our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sinsemillia Magele and Sage Magele work as teachers. The children\u2019s aunt, Pauline Toleafoa, is also with them, having…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5660,198,12205,2109,96265,75115,1345,9858,78,16609,5873,44245,117,111,43,139,69,90,1527,8229,61,3040,5273,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-314345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-attacks","9":"tag-can","10":"tag-dexter","11":"tag-family","12":"tag-giles","13":"tag-hear","14":"tag-home","15":"tag-if","16":"tag-in","17":"tag-iran","18":"tag-israel","19":"tag-kuwait","20":"tag-new","21":"tag-new-zealand","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-newzealand","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-on","26":"tag-return","27":"tag-they","28":"tag-to","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-wait","31":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}