Kerala expatriates recount panic as West Asia tensions escalate

Aneeta (name changed), a native of Wayanad now living in Bahrain where her husband works, had the scare of her life when deafening blasts ripped through her neighbourhood on Saturday afternoon.

Alarms shrieked as dust swirled and settled like a pall over the ground, while smoke curled skyward in restless spirals. Within moments, her apartment shook as if struck by an earthquake, flakes of concrete raining down. It was only then that Aneeta, in her 30s, realised the explosions were part of an Iranian strike on a nearby U.S. base.

“By the time the alert of an imminent attack flashed on our mobile phones, the assault had already begun. It is still a haze how I grabbed my daughter’s hand and fled to an open ground. The roads were choc-a-bloc with fleeing vehicles, and later friends picked us up and drove us to safety,” she recalled, still shuddering at the memory. Her husband’s absence on an official trip to Muscat made the ordeal even more harrowing. Though an attack had been widely anticipated during last year’s Iran–Israel stand-off, the the feared escalation never materialised.

As tensions escalated across West Asia following strikes on Iran by Israel and the U.S., Malayali expatriates shared accounts of panic and videos of the attacks on social media.

Arun Kumar, a Qatar-based businessman, said he had just stepped out for lunch when the assault erupted nearby. “There was this loud sound and then fireballs next to the hotel. By that time I received the government alert to stay indoors, and I rushed back to my place,” he said.

A Malayali crew member of Kuwait Airways, scheduled to return to Kuwait after completing a service to New York, was stranded at the JFK airport when Kuwait closed its airspace anticipating an attack on a U.S. base. “We were moved to a hotel and there is no clarity on when flights will resume,” he said.

In Oman, however, calm prevailed. “Probably because there is no U.S. base here,” said a Malayali accountant from Maradu. However the Indian Embassy in Muscat issued an advisory nevertheless. “In view of the current regional situation, all Indian nationals in the Sultanate of Oman are advised to avoid unnecessary travel, take due care, remain vigilant, and follow safety guidelines and advisories as and when issued by the Omani authorities and the Indian Embassy,” read the advisory.

Meanwhile, Saeed Muhammed, a resident of Vennala in Ernakulam who had moved to Dubai earlier this month for a new job, said that “things were all good” there.