At least 3,600 people in Dubai had registered on Sweden's list on Monday morning, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Tina Jordskogen from Täby spent the sports holiday with her husband and two teenage children in the popular destination, and was supposed to travel home early Sunday morning when the United States and Israel attacked Iran.
The family was staying at the Atlantis hotel on the artificial palm-shaped islands outside the city, where on Saturday evening, according to her, they witnessed debris from a drone crash into the luxury Fairmont hotel, which caused a fire a few kilometers away on The Palm.
It whizzed past right outside us, just a couple of meters, and it was the same drone that hit the Fairmont, she says, and continues:
That's when we started to panic, of course.
Changed hotel
The family chose to leave for a single-story hotel closer to the airport.
We felt that we would like to be closer to the airport because it will be chaos when everyone tries to get there when it opens.
The flight is now scheduled for Thursday, but there is great uncertainty and the family is prepared to be stuck longer. She is critical of the fact that the information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs consisted of a text message, and there has been complete silence from the airline.
She emphasizes that they are not naive and do not expect the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to rush out to "solve the slightest problem", but that given the situation, greater efforts should be made to bring Swedes home as quickly as possible.
We might have hoped that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would be more active. It is actually possible to bus people out to Oman, from where there are still flights. They could arrange some buses and make sure to get people home.
Troubling situation
Tina Jordskogen says she feels safe in their accommodation.
It would take a lot for something to hit us here, but we feel extremely anxious about the situation. We are in a war zone, and it is impossible to be calm in that situation. But there is no panic, even though it is terribly unpleasant.
The family was aware of the risk that the United States would attack Iran, but were nevertheless taken aback by how quickly the situation escalated.
"Dubai has been protected for many years. We didn't think there was any risk at all that Dubai would be drawn into this. And we probably didn't think it would happen so quickly," she says.
