Is the Dubai Dream Over?
Expats claim they will leave Dubai and never return as they fear for their lives and see their businesses destroyed while missiles continue to rain down over the United Arab Emirates.
Once a tax-free haven attracting influencers from across the globe and thousands of Brits seeking warm weather and crime free streets, Dubai’s carefully crafted image has been shattered and residents believe it is ‘finished’.
The emirate, home to around 240,000 British expats including Rio and Kate Ferdinand, Luisa Zissman and Petra Ecclestone, has been targeted by constant Iranian missile and drone attacks as the regime strikes US allies in the Middle East.
Dubai has been the target of two thirds of Iran’s missiles and three massive explosions rocked the city on Wednesday morning, with the international airport sustaining damage.
Four people were injured as two drones hit the terminal, while a string of major airlines cancelled all flights to the region for weeks.
Even the world famous Fairmont hotel on Palm Jumeirah was struck by Iran, while employees at western banks including Standard Chartered and Citi evacuated their offices amid threats from the Islamic Republic that they were the next targets of their bombing onslaught.
Four people have been killed so far and tens of thousands of residents and tourists have now fled in the weeks since the conflict began.
And those who remain face prosecution if they post videos of missiles overhead, despite constant phone alerts warning them to stay away from windows and seek shelter.
Dubai does not have vast oil reserves and relies on its expat population, which makes up 90 per cent of the city.
It has launched a desperate public relations campaign, telling people the ‘big booms’ in the sky are ‘the sound of us being safe’ as the UAE air defence system takes action.
But it has done little to quell fears.
‘The shine has definitely been taken off,’ John Trudinger, a British Dubai resident of 16 years, told The Guardian.
The headteacher employs more than 100 teachers from the UK at his Emirati school and claims most are so ‘deeply traumatised and really struggling to cope’ with the war that they have fled and will never return.
Taxi driver Zain Anwar saw his car destroyed in a missile attack and said his family are begging him to return home to Pakistan.
He said: ‘I don’t want to be in Dubai any more, there is no business, we are earning nothing since this war, and I don’t see the tourism coming back.
‘A lot of taxi drivers like me, we are thinking to go to a different country now. Everybody knows that Dubai is finished.’
Iran has continued to pound the city, sending 1,700 projectiles in two weeks, although 90 per cent have been destroyed by air defence systems.
But on Saturday, a drone was caught on video sending up a huge pall of smoke near the airport.
The official Dubai Media Office continued to insist that ‘no incident’ had occurred at the airport as it clamps down on those sharing footage of damage.
Authorities in the UAE have charged 21 people with cyber crimes for circulating videos showing missiles and explosions.
This includes a Brit who filmed missiles passing overhead and immediately deleted the footage when asked.
Content creators posting ‘misinformation’ face jail time and on Tuesday police said those posting anything which contradicts public announcements, ‘causing public panic’ could face two years behind bars and a fine of £40,000.
And Dubai’s influencer army has released a barrage of posts praising its government in suspiciously similar language – amid claims some are being paid to pump out ‘propaganda’.
Content creators with hundreds of thousands of followers between them have responded to Iranian attacks by sharing images of Dubai leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum alongside the words, ‘I know who protects us’.
The posts begin by asking ‘are you scared?’ before flashing up images of Al Maktoum waving to adoring crowds.
Sceptical social media users have responded by claiming the influencers are being paid by the UAE government, also several have spoken out to deny this.
Online content creators need a licence to operate in Dubai, and its government responded to the outbreak of war by threatening prison against anyone sharing information that ‘results in inciting panic among people’.
The tough stance is believed to have encouraged self-censorship by influencers in the Gulf state, with earlier clips of Iranian drone and missile attacks now swamped by posts lauding the regime.
In the first days of the conflict, the government cracked down on ‘citizen journalists’ reposting genuine footage of the first wave of attacks, which included a drone strike on the five-star Fairmont Hotel on the Palm Jumeirah.
The Dubai Media Office responded within a few hours by claiming that ‘outdated images of past fire incidents’ in Dubai were being spread to stoke fear among the city’s residents.
Among the influencers, Kate Ferdinand previously opened up on relocating to the Middle East where she revealed she was ‘homesick and struggling’.
But she made a dramatic U-turn, boasting about how her kids are ‘learning things they wouldn’t in the UK’.
While Luisa Zissman shared a post mocking scared tourists who’ve escaped Dubai and are ‘making out they’ve come back from the frontlines’.
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