SEPANG: Datuk Ismail Ahmad went to Qatar to visit his daughter, her Malaysian husband and their children. It was his first visit to the country – and it turned out to be a nightmare.
Missiles zoomed past the night sky and bomb strikes led to massive explosions that rocked the ground.
“We felt tremors and the pounding of bombs. The attacks were aimed at US military bases in Doha, which were just several kilometres away from my daughter’s house.
“There were explosions as if fireworks were being set off. We became quite anxious although we knew we were on relatively safe ground,” he said when met at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) yesterday.
The 67-year-old former Sabah National Registration Department director was among 170 people who arrived here on a special evacuation flight by Malaysian Airlines.
A total of 163 were Malaysians, while the rest were their foreign spouses or family members.
Five were Thai nationals, while the others were an Indonesian and a Moroccan.
The flight landed at about 12.48pm yesterday.
It was a gruelling trip home for them.
Ismail, his 61-year-old wife and the others endured a 32-hour, 1,500km overland journey by bus from Doha to Jeddah before they could board the evacuation flight. The flight took another eight hours.
“In total, it took about 40 hours to get here. We will spend another two hours returning to Sabah,” he said.
Despite the ordeal, Ismail said he still enjoyed visiting Qatar.
“It is a beautiful country. It is unfortunate that it is caught in this conflict.
“This is why we should be thankful and appreciate the peace and harmony we enjoy in Malaysia. I was so relieved when we touched down and am so happy to be back home.
“No more pounding bombs and missiles in the skies,” he said.
Ismail’s daughter and son-in-law, who work in Qatar, decided to remain there.
Another passenger, 61-year-old consultant Mervin Gomez, who was on a business trip in Doha, also endured a long journey by road to Jeddah.
He said he had gone to Qatar on Feb 23 with plans to travel to several places like Abu Dhabi, but scrapped the idea due to the conflict.
“We could see the drones and missiles zooming past in the skies, especially at nights. I was worried but thankful the targets were not close to where I was staying,” he said.
Mohd Amirul Izwan Tan, a religious studies student in Syria, said he had travelled with another fellow Malaysian student to Jeddah to board the evacuation flight.
“Although Syria has seen many conflicts in the past, it was calm this time. We had made earlier plans to return home for Hari Raya, but took this special flight due to the ongoing conflict. We travelled for 30 hours to Jeddah,” said the 24-year-old from Ulu Selangor.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman who was at KLIA said the passengers were those affected by flight disruptions and airspace closures that affected several countries in the region.
“They include Malaysian umrah pilgrims stranded in Saudi Arabia as well as in Qatar, Jordan and Syria,” he said.
The passengers are made up of children, students and elderly travellers aged between four and 88.
The evacuation operation was coordinated by the National Security Council (NSC) with the support of the ministry and Malaysian diplomatic missions in the region.
Initially, more than 400 Malaysians had signed up for evacuation, but some were able to return home earlier when commercial flight operations resumed.
“Consular officers were also deployed to Madinah to help arrange the six-hour overland journey for pilgrims travelling to Jeddah,” it said.
NSC said in a statement that the evacuation operation was successful and, of the 170 passengers who arrived, 133 were stranded in Jeddah and Madinah while 36 were transferred from Qatar, Syria and Jordan.
