Governments and airlines are evacuating thousands of travellers stranded across the Middle East after the outbreak of war, with special flights arriving home from the Gulf.
PARIS: More relieved passengers arrived home from the Gulf region on Wednesday as further flights resumed five days into the war triggered by US-Israeli attacks on Iran.
Governments chartered planes to bring home citizens affected by the turmoil, which stranded tens of thousands of travellers worldwide as airlines also resumed limited flights out of hubs including Dubai and Riyadh.
Passengers touching down at airports in Australia, France, Germany, India, Russia, and Taiwan told of sleepless nights and days-long ordeals to get out of the Middle East when war erupted.
Max Lin, a student from Taiwan, was riding a motorcycle on the beach during a long layover in Dubai when he got the news that upended his trip on Saturday, the day the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran.
“My friend messaged me asking if anything had happened where I was,” he said, adding that he looked it up and realised there seemed to be a war, so his flight that night was cancelled.
Lin spoke after disembarking from the first direct Emirates flight from Dubai to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport since the conflict began.
Fanny Wu, who had travelled to Dubai with her two children, said bombs were “going off right next to us” as the air strikes began, noting that although Taiwan has always been close to war, they had never experienced anything like this.
A Russian emergency services flight evacuated 117 citizens, including 54 children, from Azerbaijan after they left Iran overland across the border.
France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States also organised special evacuation flights from countries including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Passenger Emmy Coutelier, 18, hugged her sister at Charles de Gaulle airport after touching down in Paris from the UAE, recounting that she was in a hotel swimming pool with her boyfriend when the first strikes hit Dubai.
“We never thought this would happen,” she told AFP, describing how an alarm sounded in the middle of the night telling them not to stay near the windows so they went down to the basement.
Coutelier said she felt as if she were “fleeing danger, even though it’s a relatively safe country” when she boarded the repatriation flight.
France said it would organise further evacuation flights, but government minister Eleonore Caroit called it “a complex process, with constant uncertainty because we are in a very fluid situation”.
An evacuation flight from Abu Dhabi repatriated 175 passengers to the Spanish capital Madrid, where student Carolina Garcia recounted going through “a lot of anxiety”.
Her friend Adriana Mecia added “a lot of exhaustion” to the description, noting they hadn’t slept for about three days.
The United States said more than 9,000 Americans had returned from the region since Saturday, including more than 300 from Israel, with the State Department urging Americans in all of the Middle East from Egypt eastward to leave for their own safety.
Israel’s transport minister said the country would gradually reopen its airspace overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, “subject to security developments”.
A transport ministry spokesperson told AFP the initial flights will be to repatriate Israelis with no departures for now, noting the reopening had initially been scheduled for next week but was moved up “following security assessments with professional and security experts”.
Sharon Kedmi, director general of the Israel Airports Authority, told reporters the re-opening will begin “very cautiously, with one aircraft per hour during the first 24 hours — a narrow-body aircraft”.
The Sun Malaysia
