Nations scramble to repatriate their citizens

Widening conflict has precipitated efforts to evacuate foreigners stranded in Mideast.

- By SAMUEL PETREQUIN

AIRSPACE in the Mideast has been closed or restricted. In Sydney, passengers arrive Wednesday from Dubai

(IZHAR KHAN AFP/Getty Image)

Governments across the world scrambled to organize the return of their citizens from the Middle East on Wednesday and air traffic seemed to be picking up slightly as travel across the region remained heavily disrupted by the widening war.

The first flight repatriating French citizens stranded in the Middle East landed in Paris early Wednesday as French authorities booked about 100 seats onboard for vulnerable people on a priority list, said Eleonore Caroit, the minister responsible for French nationals abroad.

Students also returned to Milan after being evacuated from Dubai by the Italian government. Valerio Schiavoi, a member of the World Students Connection program, said he was part of a group involved in United Nations diplomatic simulations in Dubai.

“We received the news that Iran had been bombed by USA and Israel,” he told the Italian news agency La Presse.

“And as soon as we leave the room, we start to hear the sounds of military planes and so on. And the panic starts a bit. Through the window we could see missiles passing by and alarms kept sounding, but we didn’t know what to do.”

With airspace closed or heavily restricted across much of the Persian Gulf, passengers have been stranded not only in the region but also in cities far from the fighting after their connecting flights in the Middle East were canceled. More than 20,000 of the more than 36,000 flights scheduled to fly to or from the Middle East between the start of the war and Wednesday were canceled, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.