Middle East War: Northern Ireland woman tells how dream honeymoon in Maldives ended in turmoil and anxiety
A dream honeymoon in the Maldives has ended in turmoil and anxiety for a Portsewart woman - with the newlyweds forced to spend £11,000 so far out of their own pocket in a bid to get home.
Jessica and Bruce Broadbent had booked a dream honeymoon with one week in Sri Lanka followed by a week in the paradise islands of the Maldives.
However, originally due to return home to London on 1 March, the outbreak of war in the Middle East has left them stranded for an extra 12 days - with fears it may stretch to 20.
A London-based marketing director, she is now having to manage her team of 12 in the UK with nothing more than a smartphone - while constantly trying to second guess the next stages in the war and how it might affect international airline flights.
The couple are also desperately missing their children, aged 13 and nine, with Jessica sending a daily morning video message for her son to wake up to.
Her husband is also keen to get back to his job as a sales director with Google.
More than 45,000 British nationals have returned to the UK from the Middle East since the start of the war in the region.
Today, Tuesday, 36 flights were scheduled to land in the UK.
A total of 173,000 British citizens have registered their presence in the region with the UK Foreign Office.
For the Broadbents, their first seven days in the Maldives was excellent, enjoying the world-famous scenery and weather.
"Obviously we had a lovely first week - snorkeling and being in our little honeymoon bubble, enjoying the food and drink and everything else," Jessica told the News Letter.
But despite it being a dream holiday destination, the situation for travellers stuck there now is "complete chaos" with tourists "panicking" as flights are continually cancelled.
The war started the night before their departure date, and their flight home was cancelled.
"Ever since we have not been able to book a flight out of here.
"We ended up begging the resort to let us stay here. We couldn't leave because accommodation in Male, the capital, was completely full of people scrambling to get flights."
"We heard horror stories of people leaving the island to get to Mali only to find their flight had been cancelled but they had no accomodation there - so then they had to scramble back to the island."
Their postponed flight with Emirates is due to leave this Thursday but they are not optimistic it will fly.
She says the airline's chat function is disabled and call lines are either disconnected or engaged, with warnings not to call. Instead the airlines advises communicating via Instagram - but they have not got any replies via that method even after a week: "It’s shambolic".
As a back-up plan they have booked tickets to London via Shanghai on 18 March at an eye watering £7,000, on top of additional accommodation costs of £4,000.
"Although we've had a lovely holiday we're now really ready to get back home to our children."
Her father, Malcolm Glover from Portstewart, had to fly over to London to look after them.
Because they are not in the war zone they are "on their own" with no government offering support.