Qatar cancelled our flight and zero support, only lies and we foot the costs

We received an automated email notification that our flight has changed

We originally booked to fly: JNB at 19:20 and arrive at DOH at 05:15, before departing at 07:15 for our final destination The new flight forced us to fly: JNB at 13:10 and arrive at 23:05, before departing at 07:15

We have a baby traveling with us, which makes It totally unacceptable to stay at the airport for 8 hours for the whole night and taking into account the associated COVID risk of such a public place!

We visited the offices at JNB Designer Quarter, where the help desk employee and his lady manager informed us that due to COVID it is impossible to get a hotel room as we are entitled, according to the EUROPEAN passenger rights. This proved to be a blatant lie since we checked online and the hotels in the DOHA airport are fully operational and we can book a room for this date.

Based on the misinformation we where forced to alter our booking for the next day. The flight change was enforced by Qatar, and WE have to pay all the penalties for car&hotel rebooking at our destination plus the costs to repeat our COVID tests and the reduced holidays. This airline is cheating and lying to people in order to reduce the costs. I do not know why our flight was cancelled (maybe not enough bookings??) BUT at least they could have provided a hotel room or some other compensation for the inconvenience they caused.

case reference: CAS-***-F6Y0T3