US citizens living in the Middle East say they’re “angry” at the US state department, criticising the Trump administration for having no “backup plan” to help them leave the region in the hours and days after the start of the US-Israel war on Iran.
One person, whose family voted for Trump for his anti-war stance, said she felt “betrayed” and what she perceived as the treatment of US citizens as “an afterthought”.
A state department official said: “Through the department’s Task Force, we have directly provided security guidance and travel assistance to about 32,000 impacted Americans. Most Americans who have requested assistance have declined seats when offered, opting to remain in [the] country or take commercial flight options.”
Here are some of the people who contacted us to share their experiences.
‘We were left on our own to figure things out’
Dylan, 31, a US citizen who was teaching in Bahrain, says he’s “angry” at the US government’s lack of support for its citizens in the Middle East.
On the morning of the US-Israel attack on Iran on 28 February, he says he had a sense something was about to happen.
“I was on edge and constantly checking the news,” he says. At around 11am, I heard a loud bang that shook the house. I thought it was an elevator crashing. Then I heard four more. I looked out and saw smoke rising from the naval base in Juffair. After I saw the smoke, it was like I was staring into the face of death, and I knew I needed to do something immediately.”
In his first year of a two-year teaching contract, Dylan packed a few things and for the next few days took shelter in a school.
He says he then called the embassy and was met with a recording saying the phone message box “was full”. He also called the US state department, but couldn’t get through. He then asked his family to try calling them the next day, and they were not able to get in touch with anybody. Dylan also tried again, to no avail.
In the US, his parents were really anxious and managed to connect him with an aide to a US congressman who “was helping track flights and giving information about safety”.
“I shouldn’t have had to have the random luck that my dad somehow had a connection to a legislator,” he says, adding that he received help from the UK consulate, who happened to be talking to his British friend on speakerphone and also offered him advice. “The British were far more responsive and helpful,” he adds.
The next couple of days sheltering in the school “were a whirlwind of explosions and sirens and missiles being intercepted,” says Dylan.
On Monday night (2 March UAE time) Dylan decided to leave Bahrain, to travel along the causeway to Al Khobar, in Saudi Arabia. “I wasn’t going to risk having the causeway bombed and not being able to cross,” he says, adding that Saudi Arabia issued him with a visa on arrival.
Three days later he decided to take the 20-hour bus trip to Jeddah because he “didn’t feel safe flying out of Dammam or Riyadh.” He was travelling with a female friend and Dylan says some people “were angry at her because she wasn’t covered, so she got an abaya” to wear: “I was speaking Portuguese with my friend because I didn’t want people to think I was American,” he says. “We were being very low-key.”
After staying in Jeddah, Dylan flew out of Jeddah on Sunday (8 March) to Lisbon, Portugal, where he was planning to stay with friends for a few days before making his way back to the US.
He says he would like to return to Bahrain if the war ends. In the meantime, he says he “felt let down” by the US state department.
“The US initiated this whole thing with Israel, and in doing so, was not only putting civilians in Iran in harm’s way, but putting their own US civilians in the region at risk without a backup plan, without any support, leaving us on our own to figure things out.”
‘It’s just a shame that you can’t count on your own government’
Ashley, who is originally from North Carolina, was on a month-long break in Abu Dhabi with her boyfriend and their five-year-old when the US-Israel attack on Iran happened.
The family, who live in France, were trying to leave as soon as the conflict widened, but said their efforts to get information from the US state department were fruitless.
“The US state department continued to say online that their number one priority was the safety of American citizens,” she says in the days after the attack. “They said ‘all you have to do is call this number’, and then you call the number, and they had no idea what was going on. There was no one to help you.”
Ashley says the state department issued a memo on 2 March (US time) (3 March UAE time) saying all American citizens had to “depart now”. “But the skies were closing,” she explains. “There was no way to depart. So it just became this mess of the US government saying all these things that were impossible.”
It took two more days before US citizens were issued a form to request assistance to get out of the region which she filled out. Three days after that, the US state department began “reaching out to people”, saying they would get people on flights.
“It’s wild that a government that starts a war would then wait days into the war to start repatriating everyday citizens,” she says.
A state department official said on Thursday (12 March) that the US government had organised nearly 50 flights to return US citizens from the Middle East since the war began.
In the end, Ashley, who is a US citizen and has French residency, found a flight on Friday (6 March UAE time) to Portugal. Just two hours before takeoff, she says missiles were being intercepted near the airport, and spoke of her fear during the flight.
“Every time we hit turbulence as we were travelling through the Middle East, it was really scary,” she says.
When they eventually landed in Europe, she “felt physically sick”.
“It’s just a shame that you can’t even count on your own government,” says Ashley, who works in product marketing in tech. “If you can’t get people out, that’s OK, but communicate. Help us to understand why and what the next steps are.
“Have a plan in place. Help us to feel supported.”
‘We voted for the Trump who wasn’t going to war – we feel betrayed’
Aaliya*, 37, and her husband, who are both US citizens, live in Abu Dhabi with their two young children.
Disappointed with the initial lack of support from the US government when the conflict began, she also feels “betrayed and embarrassed” as she had encouraged “all her family to vote for Trump” because of his stance on war and his “promise to put America and Americans first”.
“There wasn’t a coherent plan on how to help US citizens,” she says. “We were an afterthought.” She adds there was “no information” from the US state department “for days”.
She had been trying to find a suitable flight out of Abu Dhabi for her and their two children, aged six months and three.“Hearing the missiles in the middle of the night, is taking a toll on us mentally. My three-year-old clings to me when she hears an alert.”
Aaliya had been offered a flight to Athens by the US state department, but she opted to pay for a direct commercial flight, departing from Dubai, to the US.
She says while she has felt “safe” in the UAE and has been getting regular information on missile interceptions, she is leaving because she “doesn’t know or trust what the US will do next”.
Aaliya says she regrets encouraging her family to vote for Trump. “When this happened, and seeing the trajectory of everything, it makes me feel really, really betrayed and sad,” she says. “It’s embarrassing. We didn’t vote for this Trump; we voted for the Trump who wasn’t going to war, who was making sure we have lower prices, and we got the complete opposite. I was so naive. I feel like he betrayed the people who voted for him.
“He’s not making America first, and the sad thing is, US citizens in different countries are also facing these repercussions. I wish he really was for the American people. I’m not confident in anything he’s saying. We didn’t need to be in this situation.”
Aaliya and her husband have been in the UAE since July 2023 and had planned to stay for four years before returning to the US, where she had hoped to take up a residency at a hospital.
While she still “loves America and being an American”, she says her journey back to Virginia will not be a joyful homecoming.
“Going back to the US is going to be sad, because what we’re in now is something that could have been prevented,” she says. “It didn’t have to happen, and everything is going to be affected: the economy, oil prices, everything.”
*Name has been changed
