{"id":326791,"date":"2026-03-07T13:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T13:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/326791\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T13:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T13:40:11","slug":"british-family-stranded-in-middle-east-after-foreign-office-errors-us-israel-war-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/326791\/","title":{"rendered":"British family stranded in Middle East after Foreign Office errors | US-Israel war on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

A British family stranded in the Middle East after being wrongly refused entry to an evacuation flight from Oman<\/a> say they have received an apology from the Foreign Office, but no actual help to get home.<\/p>\n

Nusaybah Sattar, 26, from London, was in Dubai with her family to celebrate her brother-in-law\u2019s 40th birthday when the city was hit by Iranian drones and missiles last Saturday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sattar said she heard bangs earlier in the day but thought it was construction work. \u201cIt just hit home \u2013 the reality that it could happen anywhere,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When they realised what was happening, the family left the country, making an eight-hour drive to Oman. There, they registered their presence with the UK government and were informed of a charter flight to London being organised for British nationals by the Foreign Office.<\/p>\n

The family of six paid more than \u00a31,700 for tickets, but when they tried to board the flight on Wednesday, Foreign Office ground workers said that most of them had not been approved to do so.<\/p>\n

They later found out that Sattar\u2019s 19-month-old toddler and her 84-year-old grandmother-in-law, who uses a wheelchair, were the only ones cleared to board.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose two are the most vulnerable of our group and they need carers. They can\u2019t just go on a flight by themselves,\u201d Sattar said.<\/p>\n

Sattar\u2019s husband contacted the Home Office<\/a>, which said they did not have the correct visas to enter the UK. Every member of the family is a British national and had their UK passports in hand while attempting to board the plane.<\/p>\n

Sattar was also told there was an issue with how her name appeared in the system because she had a different surname before marriage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we had English names, I don\u2019t think there would have have been an issue,\u201d she said. \u201cThere were other families there that weren\u2019t of our background and it was much for easier for them to get on to the flight.\u201d<\/p>\n

With half an hour to go before the plane was due to take off, the family had to concede that none of them would be able to board.<\/p>\n

The flight, which was the first charter to take British nationals back to the UK from the Middle East<\/a> since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran<\/a>, was ultimately delayed until Thursday.<\/p>\n

The flight was part of a wider evacuation effort<\/a> that the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, has called \u201cone of the biggest of its kind\u201d but it still departed without Sattar\u2019s family onboard.<\/p>\n

Passengers on the UK\u2019s first evacuation flight from the Middle East arrive at Stansted airport on Friday. Photograph: Alberto Pezzali\/AP<\/p>\n

More than 140,000 Britons have registered their presence in the Middle East<\/a> with the Foreign Office, but MPs and British nationals in the Middle East have criticised the pace and scale of the evacuation effort.<\/p>\n

Airspace over the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and much of the surrounding area was initially suspended<\/a> after Iranian strikes targeted Dubai and other major cities in the region, and has since opened up in a very limited capacity.<\/p>\n

The Foreign Office later told Sattar\u2019s mother that the family had all been cleared to board but, according to its records, had not arrived at the airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so many different things that they\u2019ve been saying to everyone and none of it is actually true. It\u2019s so completely disorganised,\u201d Sattar said.<\/p>\n

She added that several Foreign Office staff members have since called her and her family to apologise but failed to offer any further help.<\/p>\n

On Thursday night the Foreign Office crisis team was still unable to tell the family whether a further charter flight would be leaving Oman, so Sattar and her family made the eight-hour journey back to Dubai<\/a> to stay with her brother-in-law.<\/p>\n

However, on Friday morning, she was told another evacuation flight would depart from Oman later that day \u2013 one she would no longer be able to reach.<\/p>\n

Sattar said she no longer has the \u201cphysical or financial resources\u201d to make another journey to Oman, having so far spent just under \u00a34,000 on tickets for the charter flight, hotels in Oman, and transport from and back to Dubai. She added that taxis were charging \u00a31,000 per person to flee Dubai for Oman.<\/p>\n

She said that her disabled grandmother, a stroke patient who suffers from serious back problems, had now run out of essential medication, and that the Foreign Office, despite being at fault, told her it was \u201cnot willing to do anything to help us get back\u201d.<\/p>\n

She is now pleading with the Home Office to organise her family\u2019s safe transport from Dubai back to Oman and accommodation until the next available evacuation flight, or to secure them seats on a charter plane out of the UAE.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to think that the British Embassy was this big deal. If you needed help to get back safely to the UK, they\u2019d be willing to do that,\u201d she said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if you have a certain name. You are a British national and you\u2019ll come back safely. It\u2019s just shocking that this has even happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

A government spokesperson said: \u201cOur rapid deployment team has been working through the night to support British nationals through this distressing time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll passengers are told that eligibility checks must be completed before a seat can be confirmed, and that they should not travel to the airport unless contacted directly by our consular team. This kind of operation is logistically complicated and things can change quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A British family stranded in the Middle East after being wrongly refused entry to an evacuation flight from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-326791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}