Jonelle Oberholzer was finally placed in a hotel. (Photo: Provided)
A young winemaker is one of several South Africans who have been stranded in Doha for days now due to the conflict in the Middle East.
Jonelle Oberholzer (26) was sent from port to starboard after her connecting flight at Doha Airport in Qatar was canceled due to the conflict.
Christopher du Toit, a South African who has only been working on a yacht in Dubai’s marina for a few weeks, had to try to stay calm himself on Saturday and calm guests’ spirits when full-scale war broke out in the region.
Oberholzer and Du Toit spoke to Maroela Media on Monday morning from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) respectively, where missiles could be seen right in the airspace above them for the last few days.
Stranded
Oberholzer took a flight from South Africa to Australia on Friday evening to work on a wine farm in the Barossa Valley for the next three months. She had to wait a long time in Doha for a connecting flight and decided to explore the city on Saturday morning. By 12pm on Saturday she returned to the airport to catch her connecting flight to Adelaide.
“When I set foot in the airport, I and everyone else received a notification on our phones,” she said from Qatar.
Travelers were informed that missiles might be fired and people were advised to seek shelter. However, the notice was in Arabic and Oberholzer initially did not understand what she was supposed to do.
“I asked someone at the airport what was going on and they just told me to keep calm,” she says.
The notice that Jonelle Oberholzer received at the airport on Saturday. (Photo: Provided)
Numerous flights, including Oberholzer’s flight to Australia, were canceled at that stage.
Oberholzer finally forwarded the notice to her family in South Africa and they translated it for her. She later found out on social media that missiles had been fired in the area.
She says that although some passengers subsequently received vouchers to stay in hotels, Qatar Airways ground staff at the airport repeatedly told her that they did not have a hotel voucher for her.
She then had to spend the night at the airport.
By Sunday morning, there were at least 11 missile attacks in quick succession not far from the airport. Oberholzer says the airport’s windows shook as the missiles were deflected.
“It sounds like a building being demolished. You kind of wonder what’s going on. It’s obviously something we’re not used to at all.”
Oberholzer says that with the help of Theo de Jager van Saai, a family friend of her parents, she got in touch with the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) at the airport.
However, Dirco simply advised her to stay at the airport and said they could make recommendations for hotels.
“I didn’t really expect them to help me,” Oberholzer admitted to Maroela Media.
The airport had to be evacuated at one stage on Sunday and Oberholzer and among others a young couple from South Africa were taken to the Hall of Celebration shelter where they waited for hours for accommodation in a hotel.
Finally heading to a hotel. (Photo: Provided)
The couple were on their way from Singapore to South Africa when their flight was also cancelled.
At the shelter they met another South African, a man on his way to Dallas in the USA.
Oberholzer says it was chaotic at the shelter as people argued with staff in between the interpreters to be placed in hotels.
“It looked like a show hall. At least we got food parcels there.”
By late Sunday afternoon, Oberholzer and the three other South Africans she met there were placed in a hotel. However, when they got there, the hotel had no food for them and there was no Wi-Fi to contact loved ones.
The group of South Africans were later taken to another, more luxurious hotel where they spent the night on Sunday evening and are now waiting to catch onward flights.
“I slept like a baby last night,” says Oberholzer.
“I was so grateful to be able to sleep in a bed again. It drains you quite a bit. You are unaware of how tense you actually are. You are on edge and your thoughts run away with you, but it does no one any good to stress. My family at home was in turmoil.”
Situation calm
“For now there is no reason to panic,” says Oberholzer. “This morning we received another notice saying we have to stay indoors. But for now it’s calm. It seems to me that residential areas are not being targeted. So we just sit and wait.”
At this stage, Qatar Airways still has no answers about the resumption of flights, but is continuously sending passengers messages with the company to inform them of the situation at some point.
Oberholzer says she also knows that people were walking around outside the hotel on Monday morning and there were even deliveries made outside the hotel.
“It’s quiet now where I am. We last heard something in the air this morning at 08:00. But just when you think it’s been quiet for a long time, something happens again…”
Jonelle Oberholzer was finally placed in a hotel. (Photo: Provided)
Conflict strange to SA’ers
Du Toit, who exchanged South Africa for Dubai with his girlfriend a few weeks ago to work on yachts, says that he was at sea with guests on Saturday evening. On the boat’s return it rained missiles.
These missiles were all intercepted.
“But it was overwhelming,” says Du Toit. “You don’t immediately understand what’s going on. Stuff falls out of the sky and you don’t know where it’s going to land.”
Du Toit (20) landed in Dubai three weeks ago and his girlfriend, Ilze van der Westhuizen, a week ago. He says that the guests on the boat were obviously panicking. “It takes a lot from you to stand strong.”
No boat has left the marina since Saturday’s attacks and the water police are constantly patrolling.
Christopher du Toit and Ilze van der Westhuizen in Dubai. (Photo: Provided)
“We are relatively safe on the boat,” Du Toit said on behalf of himself and Van der Westhuizen on Monday morning, explaining that they are grateful for each other in the strange.
“The situation is overwhelming. This is not something we as South Africans know. This stuff does not happen in our country.”
As Du Toit spoke to Maroela Media on the phone on Monday morning, fighter jets could be heard in the background.
“You hear them, but you don’t see them,” he explained. “I hear them flying over now and it’s definitely not an Emirates plane with passengers that I hear there.”
Emirates planes are grounded at Dubai Airport on Monday. (Photo; Photo by FADEL SENNA / AFP)