The most gut-wrenching video you'll watch all year: Single mother is reunited with her four-year-old son after travel restrictions stopped him from returning to Australia for TWO years
The heartwarming moment a single mother is reunited with her four-year-old son after two years apart during Covid border closures has been shared online.
Rajshree Patel sent her son to visit his grandparents in India in July 2019 but when the pandemic hit he could not travel back and they remained separated.
In the video Ms Patel runs up and embraces her son Nevaan at the arrivals gate of Sydney airport and bursts into tears as she hugs him for the first time in 24 months.
Rajshree Patel embraced her son Nevaan at Sydney airport as they were reunited after he went to visit his grandparents in July 2019 and became stranded overseas
'I feel so relieved, it's like my heart is back,' an overwhelmed Ms Patel says.
Ms Patel applied four times for travel exemptions to allow her parents to bring the toddler back to Australia but they were denied because her parents weren't 'immediate family'.
The fourth application was finally approved and Nevaan and his grandmother travelled from India to Darwin where they quarantined at the Howard Springs facility.
Ms Patel questioned why her application was not approved sooner.
She said that single mothers in particular needed the physical and mental support of at least one parent during their pregnancy and child's early years.
The government should take steps to allow exceptional cases into the country even if those people aren't permanent residents, she said.
'Everyone needs their family'.
Ms Patel had applied for times for a travel exemption so Nevaan could travel back to Australia with his grandmother
More than 1,200 people have reacted on the video and while some questioned why Ms Patel allowed her son to visit his grandparents, most showed empathy.
'I couldn't imagine how heartbreaking this would be, I'm so glad they're reunited,' one person said.
'No one ever imagined that the world would see a pandemic like this and Australia would behave this way. Be happy for family who got reunited. Meanwhile let's just stick to the cause of reuniting families,' added another.
Australia slammed its international border shut in March 2020 as a response to the growing Covid-19 situation.
Plane arrivals back into the country were also limited so as not to overload the hastily established hotel quarantine system.
Hundreds of thousands of Australians overseas have struggled to get home since with many thousands still stranded overseas.
National cabinet last week decided Australia will reduce international arrivals by 50 per cent due to the risk of the Delta variant of Covid.
The single mother said the government should consider travel exemptions in special cases for people who are not permanent citizens
Outbreaks of the new variant including one involving hundreds of cases which emerged in a Sydney in mid-June, plunged 12 million Australians into lockdown in early July.
Labor premiers in Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia previously called on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to reduce passenger caps.
'We are at a pressure cooker moment,' Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said.
But Home Affairs Minster Karen Andrews had rejected calls to reduce caps.
'We need to learn to live and to work in the COVID environment in which we find ourselves,' she told reporters on the Gold Coast.
'The first response should not be to close down our borders.'
Ms Andrews said weekly caps of about 1000 passengers entering Queensland and 3000 coming to NSW were not large.