Have Brits in the Middle East been abandoned?
This Is Why
Sky News
4.0 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2026
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Most people have had a bad experience on holiday – but not many will have seen their destination turn into a war zone.
That’s been the case for thousands of British travellers in places like Oman and Dubai following the start of the conflict with Iran.
The UK’s first repatriation flight was branded a “total shambles” - so what is the government doing to help both holiday makers and expats caught in the crossfire?
Niall is joined by Sky’s correspondent Sally Lockwood in Dubai.
Have you got a question for Niall? Email the show – why@sky.uk
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Sky News, the full story first. |
| 0:05.0 | Brits in the Middle East are increasingly angry at the government's attempts to get them home. |
| 0:17.0 | And this is why. |
| 0:23.6 | Add water to your will. And know that from that single drop, |
| 0:26.6 | life will grow. |
| 0:29.6 | Communities will flourish. |
| 0:31.6 | A better world will be left. |
| 0:34.6 | By leaving a gift in your will to Water Aid, |
| 0:41.2 | you'll help bring essential clean water to people who need it to change their own lives for generations to come. |
| 0:45.1 | Add Water Aid to your will. |
| 0:47.3 | Search Water Aid Legacy to find out how. |
| 0:51.4 | For unlimited all-day travel in London, think TFL. |
| 0:55.4 | With the daily cap fair frozen until March 2027, travel as much as you like on |
| 1:01.0 | Tube, Bus, Elizabeth Line, DLR and Overground, knowing you'll never pay any more than £8.0.0.0. |
| 1:09.9 | Download TFL Go to plan your journey. To the Mayor of London and |
| 1:13.5 | TFL, every journey matters. Always use the same card of device when touching in and out for full |
| 1:18.6 | terms and conditions such TFL fare capping. Hi everyone, Neil here and I'm just, like me, you might have spent any time recently, |
| 1:31.0 | just imagining what it must be like to be stuck in the Middle East. Yeah, pretty grim, isn't it? |
| 1:36.3 | Well, the government's first chartered plane was due to return Wednesday night from Oman. It ended up being cancelled. |
| 1:42.3 | And we're working as fast as possible to get our people out. |
| 1:47.8 | As of today, over 140,000 individuals in the region have registered their presence. |
| 1:54.3 | Still, other countries managed to start repatriating their passport holders well before the UK. |
... |
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