If global media reports were to be believed, the UAE is awash with people desperate to leave the country in the wake of the Iran war.
However, discussions on WhatsApp groups, chats among friends and even casual conversations with strangers at the supermarket or gym paint a different picture about the position of the people who call the UAE home.
Residents, it turns out, not only want to stay, but those who are abroad also want to return.
'My flight kept getting moved'
Sarah Silsbury, who runs styling company Dubai Secret Shopper, flew to the UK to visit her daughter on the morning of February 27. The following day, the UAE was targeted by the first wave of Iranian missiles.
“My husband Facetimed with me and our daughter, and I realised it was more serious than I had anticipated,” says Silsbury. “I immediately wanted to come home … but my flight kept getting moved.”
Silsbury decided to take matters into her own hands.
“I thought I would just go to the airport and wait, but I got bumped again,” she says. “They weren’t running their usual flights, just repatriation flights. I went to the Emirates desk and told them I was a resident and that I wanted to get home, and I was on a flight three hours later. I wanted to get back to my husband, animals and Dubai despite what was happening.”
'I missed our home'
There are no official figures available for the number of people who left the UAE in the wake of the attacks by Iran. However, earlier this month the Financial Times wrote of the British population: “Official estimates obtained by the FT show 30,000 British residents – or between 10-15 per cent of the pre-war, long-term population – are outside the UAE.”
This estimate does not, however, account for those who left the UAE for the Eid Al Fitr and school spring break, which was brought forward a week, nor those who planned to return after their holiday.
For British freelance marketer, Sally Moore, leaving the country was a combination of a pre-planned school holiday coupled with increasing anxiety around the war.
“I went back to the UK on March 20,” says the mother of one. “When the war broke out, I was seeing more and more friends starting to leave and it was making me feel a little bit unsettled. I was fine by day, but night-time and the alerts had me on edge, along with the fact that home schooling a neurodiverse child hasn’t been an easy process.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t feel safe, it was more the fact I was feeling unsettled about things I was reading,” explains Moore.
After extending her 10-day break in the UK, where she and her daughter stayed with friends, Moore decided it was time to return to the UAE.
“I missed our home,” she says. “I missed our creature comforts and my own bed, and my daughter missed her friends and being in her own room. We missed walking around Dubai and the vibe of the place, so it’s great to be back.
“Obviously, we are very aware of what’s happening around us, we are mindful, we don’t stray too far from home, but we still see friends. We hope and pray that this situation will soon be over and we can get back to living the life we want in the country we call home.”
'I was counting down the days'
Worried family and friends back in home countries have also influenced UAE residents’ decisions to leave temporarily.
Sara Capriotti, who owns lifestyle and content platform The Secret Society, left the UAE a week after the first attack with her nine-month-old and flew to Italy to visit family.
“I wouldn’t have left if it were only for me, but my baby is young and I was concerned about a potential escalation,” she says. “I also wanted my family to feel more at ease and have some time with the baby.”
While Capriotti enjoyed her time with her family, she says the UAE was constantly on her mind.
“I was literally dreaming of coming back every single day,” she says. “I missed my house, my daily routine and going for walks on Kite Beach. Most of all, the safety we have in the UAE is the main thing I miss when I am in Europe.”
When it came to returning, Capriotti says she was “counting the days”.
“I was very excited about coming back,” she says. “I am also part of a group chat with more than 1,000 mums and they were all telling me that I was doing the right thing. Most of them stayed in Dubai during this time and felt totally safe and, most of all, felt like their kids were safe. Talking to other mums made me feel like I was making the right choice not only for myself, but also for my baby.”
'We feel comfortable here'
Indian national Selvamani Duraimoorthy took to Instagram to share his family’s flight back to the UAE after three weeks away.
“We had planned to vacation in Thailand, but the flight was cancelled, so we went to India as my son's school was on a break,” he says. “We had a three-week holiday visiting family and friends, and we flew back on March 31.”
The family, who has been in the UAE for two years after moving from Qatar, couldn’t wait to get back to the community of friends they had built here, says Duraimoorthy, and the only difference they saw upon their return was the quieter Abu Dhabi airport and roads.
“We missed the parks and how clean it is,” he said. “The community is good, especially where we live in Discovery Gardens where there are a lot of Tamil and Indian people. We all feel comfortable here.
“Hopefully people will see me posting on Instagram that it is safe and they too will come back,” he adds.
This is something reiterated by psychologist Sarah Rasmi, founder of Thrive Wellbeing Centre in Dubai. “I want to be genuinely optimistic – not in a toxic positivity kind of way – but because the data supports it,” she says. “The UAE has recovered from every difficult period it has faced.”
'This is where we belong'
Returning to the UAE is a personal decision and one made thanks to a mix of informed choices, discussions with partners, media influence and gut instinct.
“By every credible measure, the UAE remains safe,” Dr Rasmi adds. “The government has been transparent, communicative, and is prioritising the safety and well-being of us residents. And yet, logic and emotion don't always move at the same speed. That gap is exactly what makes this decision hard.
“We know we're safe, but we can still feel afraid and uncertain. I encourage people to separate those two things deliberately: get your facts from official sources – not group chats – and then give yourself equal permission to tend to the emotional reality too.”
Dubai entrepreneurs Marija and Santi Levinskaja say they “made the decision to leave very quickly” following the first attack.
“By March 2, we had travelled to Oman by car, where we stayed for five days,” says Santi. “From there, on March 11, we flew to Tbilisi, Georgia, and then continued to Batumi, where we stayed for about two weeks. After that, we went to Phuket for another two weeks before eventually returning to Dubai.”
The parents to five children, aged 14, 10, six, two, and eight months, travelled as a group of 11, which also included Santi’s father and three members of staff.
“For us, it was never about losing trust in the UAE,” he says. “We always believed in the country. It was simply about not wanting to sit in uncertainty with our children. That’s a very different feeling.”
When asked what he and his family missed about the UAE, Santi says “everything.”
“We missed our home, our daily life, the structure, the people around us. We missed the feeling of safety, the sun, the service and the sense of understanding that exists in Dubai. More than anything, we missed the feeling of belonging. Dubai is not just where we live, it is where we feel at home.
Even though the situation was still uncertain, we realised that constantly moving, constantly searching for ‘safer’ places, was not the answer for us,” Santi adds. “We wanted stability again. We wanted our home. Coming back confirmed something very clearly for me: this is where we belong.”
