A Married at First Sight star has told Metro that he’s considering leaving Dubai after being caught up in Iranian missile strikes.
After appearing on the Australian version of the reality dating series in 2020, a few months ago Mikey Pembroke moved to the United Arab Emirates to work as a real estate agent.
However, on Saturday he was one of Dubai’s nearly four million residents who were left on edge after Iran vowed to escalate retaliation for the killing of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Over the past few days, the country has been targeting sites across Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Iraq, and Israel in response to the USA starting ‘major combat operations’ to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities. Since then, the UAE’s airspace has also been temporarily closed.
When the city began being hit, Mikey shared a clip to social media, showing his 71,000 followers footage of missiles exploding near his apartment complex.
‘All right guys, can confirm Dubai has been hit. I just heard about explosions above my apartment building. There’s been like 20 explosions,’ he said in the video.
‘I think it is like missiles getting intercepted above where I am staying…I don’t know what is going on. Literally next to me,’ he added.
A few days on, Mikey has now detailed feeling like he’s been left ‘in limbo’ as uncertainty about whether the conflict will escalate further intensifies.
‘We are obviously in the Gulf and geographically very close to Iran and the tensions are high, but there wasn’t much media over here speculating this could happen or telling people to undertake safety measures or anything,’ he told Metro about the lead-up to the weekend’s strikes.
But on Saturday, Mikey, who is from Sydney, said people had heard ‘there’d be some action going on in Abu Dhabi, which is obviously quite close to here’.
While at home later that evening, around 7pm, he then heard a ‘massive bang’ and ran outside, where people were filming one of the missiles coming down on Dubai.
‘Then my friend said the Dubai Hills had been hit and the Palm Jumeirah. It was pretty hectic as we didn’t know if that was the start of something happening or not. The government was telling residents there was a threat and people were seeking shelter and some hotels were moving guests into the basements,’ he recalled.
‘There was a lot going on and I thought “is this going to kick off”.’
However, by the next morning, things appeared to have calmed down, with Mikey saying people ‘felt a bit safer’. A few days later, he’s still hearing explosions in the sky. ‘I think the way Iran is sending messages out has left people a bit on edge about what is going to happen from here on in,’ he said.
Although there have been no government directives advising residents to stay indoors, Mikey’s employer is telling its workers to stay at home and be ‘cautious’.
‘I think everyone is just trying to minimise going out as much as possible. There’s nothing keeping you from going out, but these are untested waters, and no one really knows what is going to happen,’ he explained.
‘At the moment, I will go up the road to get groceries, but I am really just waiting it out to see how it all unfolds. It could blow over, but what if it doesn’t? We are trying to figure out what to do from here.
‘I really don’t know what my next month looks like and whether I will stay in Dubai or go home. It just depends on how everything goes. I’ll have to see what happens with how this all plays out. It is pretty full on.’
Mikey went on to say things currently felt ‘very much in limbo’, adding his family had been left worried about what might happen.
‘Iran’s military put something up on social media just a few minutes ago about attacking the Burj Khalifa and you just don’t know what to think. In the back of your mind you think, “they are just trying to scare us, and it won’t happen”, but you also think “but what if it does”,’ he said.
‘I do worry a bit about if Iran goes and attacks any Western area they can. Obviously I am hoping nothing happens and right now I feel safe and the UAE has done an amazing job intercepting missiles close to Dubai. But you wonder, when does this all end?’
Since the initial strikes, UK flights to the Middle East have been cancelled, while airports in Dubai and Doha have halted all services until further notice.
On Saturday, the UK Foreign Office warned Brits in Dubai that they should ‘immediately shelter in place’.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has also said in a joint statement with the leaders of France and Germany that Iran must ‘refrain from indiscriminate military strikes’.
However Iran’s foreign ministry has said the missile strikes have been ordered in self-defence.
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