Introduction
We reproduce an interview conducted by Ricardo Ubric with our CEO, Eric Sánchez, in the newspaper Www.huelva24.com on the occasion of being in Abu Dhabi at the time the war against Iran began. I was there for work reasons and on Saturday the bombings broke out when I was going to catch my return flight.
Clash of realities in Dubai
The world is looking to the Middle East these days after the start last weekend of war hostilities with the bombings of the United States and Israel on Iran, which are also affecting other countries in the area. Many Spanish families are also in suspense because the closure of airspace is preventing them from returning to Spain.
One is the hairdresser Fernando Palacios and the other is the former professional basketball player Eric Sánchez, who for years has been triumphing internationally in the finance sector with Reental, a company with which any citizen can diversify their portfolio by investing in real estate around the world at the click of a button. These days he is trapped in Abu Dhabi, as he told Huelva24 in a telephone conversation.
Statements by Eric Sánchez
“I came to Dubai a week ago because we have, both in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, some investments and projects. And just on Saturday, when I was in Abu Dhabi and I was flying at night, we were notified that the United States and Israel had started the attack on Iran, so we went to the house of some friends we have here and we waited for events. Then they quickly notified us that the flight was being canceled that night and that we should be attentive to the next steps,” he said.
Recognize that from the street, and although they are safe and quiet, they have sometimes heard noises:
“The Emirates here have a fairly powerful defense system and have said that they have intercepted more than 500 missiles and drones between them. 95% have intercepted them, although some have arrived at a naval base, but in civilian areas what has arrived has been the remains of a drone. Life on the street is quite normal here, although sometimes you can hear some interception sounds from the sky.”
Uncertainty and unprecedented experience
The Huelva player, who keeps traveling every week to many parts of the world, something he also did as a player but now more as a businessman, assumes that he is living in an uncomfortable situation that had never happened in his life.
“They feel that way they feel very safe and the question was to see if this would climb or lower the level. Right now there is a bit of uncertainty because it seems that the United States wants to double its strength because Saudi Arabia has touched the American embassy. Some planes have started to fly out, but very punctual, both from Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and the important thing is to position yourself well. I have never experienced such a situation and now all we have left is to be very aware of the potential solutions we have here.”
Options for leaving the country
Regarding the various possibilities he has of leaving the Asian country, he told this newspaper that:
“The two of us that we had taken have been canceled and now we are here with people from Spain because there was a basketball tournament for young teams here and we joined the Valencia Basket expedition because I have a member of the club and they have added us. So our escape routes are to wait for the two planes we had booked to relocate us or wait for this one because the Euroleague and other basketball organizations are trying by all means to create a corridor or a sale for them to leave. And another option is to go by car to Oman, which is a country that is to the south and where the airport is operating a little more, but right now apparently the border is complicated and there aren't as many flights from Oman, so I think it's better to wait in the windows here instead of going six or seven hours by car to Oman to see if there are more planes there.”
Daily life in the midst of conflict
Finally, he recognized that there is a certain fear among society waiting for the war events that may continue to unfold in the coming days.
“Here you are experiencing a strange normality because life goes on, the hotels are open, you can go to restaurants, the shopping centers are also open and you hear practically nothing all day on the street removing a bomb from time to time. They are heard closer to the naval base than in the city. And I say the strange normality thing because it seems that you can live a normal life but you are still in an area that can be attacked. The reality is that there has been very little damage to cities. They have only been circumstantial of those remains of things intercepted. There have been some injuries and I think three have died between Dubai and Abu Dhabi because those remains have arrived, for example, in some buildings and those people have been unlucky. These are large cities with more than eight million inhabitants and there may have been more deaths these days due to traffic accidents. But you don't stop being in the uncertainty of being in the middle of a war,” he concluded.
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