Navy families evacuated from Bahrain face ‘uncharted territory’ amid bureaucratic confusion

Nearly six months after the U.S. Navy evacuated 1,300 family members from Bahrain at the start of the Iran war, officials are saying the evacuees cannot return for the foreseeable future and should find new homes elsewhere.

The evacuation has left families in limbo and forced military officials to improvise solutions for support programs that were never designed to sustain a displacement lasting this long. 

Some evacuees say they have spent tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket for basic living expenses. Others are sleeping on the floors of temporary housing, while their cars and furniture are stranded in Bahrain or aboard ships unable to leave the region. 

Many say the prolonged displacement has taken an emotional toll and worry about its long-term effects on their families’ financial and emotional well-being.

Government officials have extended and adjusted benefits to cover lodging, transportation and basic necessities. But some forms of assistance begin expiring after 180 days, or six months, forcing the Navy and State Department to scramble to come up with workarounds. 

“We literally have been making this up as we go, because nothing is conceived to go on this length of time,” Vice Adm. Curt Renshaw, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said Wednesday at a virtual town hall meeting, according to an audio recording obtained by Stars and Stripes from one of the nearly 600 attendees. 

Military officials have declined for months to provide a timeline for returning families to Bahrain as the fighting continued, ceasefires collapsed and hopes of a lasting peace agreement faded.

Bahrain ordinarily hosts NAVCENT headquarters and about 8,300 service members, dependents and civilians at Naval Support Activity Bahrain. But the Navy drastically reduced its presence after the war began, leaving only a contingent for critical operations.

As the war drags on, it is increasingly unclear whether the evacuated personnel — or NAVCENT headquarters itself — will return to the base, which has been repeatedly hit by Iranian drones and missiles. 

Flames climb the exterior of the Breaker residential tower in Bahrain following an Iranian attack on Feb. 28, 2026. The continuing threat of Iranian drone and missile attacks has prevented evacuated military and civilian families from returning to the island. (Stars and Stripes)

In a message to families last week obtained by Stars and Stripes, Navy officials said conditions in Bahrain prohibit the full return of NAVCENT’s military and civilian staff and the return of dependents for “the foreseeable future.” 

Officials are developing plans for where NAVCENT headquarters will be located over the medium and long term, the message added. 

The Washington Post reported last week that top Pentagon officials are reconsidering the U.S. military presence in the region, including whether to pull back troops from the largest bases in the Persian Gulf. 

U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. military operations in the Middle East, did not respond to questions about the potential relocation of NAVCENT headquarters.

Regarding the fate of evacuees, a spokesperson for CENTCOM said that each situation is different. 

“We are working with service members and dependents on a case-by-case basis to ensure military families are supported,” Maj. Emma Thompson wrote in an email. 

For evacuated families, the uncertainty has complicated key life decisions, including where to live, where to enroll children in school and where to receive medical care.

“When we started this journey, there were some pretty clear rules,” Renshaw told Bahrain evacuees at the town hall. “As we’ve moved on, we’re really in uncharted territory right now.” 

Hoping to provide more stability, the Navy recently directed dependents to designate a new home base — in most cases, in the U.S. — where they can receive their household goods and transition out of temporary safe-haven status.

If it is deemed safe in the future, dependents will be able to return, according to the message. 

One spouse of an active-duty sailor, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, said the repeated displacement has traumatized her children. The family first fled to a U.S. base in Germany, where donations from the local military community helped them set up a temporary household. They were later told they had to relocate again, this time to the United States.

The spouse is now living in a short-term rental without the family’s car or furniture, which remain in Bahrain with her husband. She has been receiving per diem payments, which include daily reimbursement for meals and other essentials. Those funds will be replaced by a housing allowance after safe-haven benefits expire, but she is still struggling to find child care, medical care and basic necessities such as pantry staples. 

She said her kids are developing “serious behavior” issues as a result of the move, and that the youngest now barely recognizes her husband during video calls.

“I would go back to Bahrain tomorrow if my husband weren’t worried about that decision affecting his career and our financial future,” she told Stars and Stripes. 

The prolonged evacuation has left families navigating a complex mix of rules, benefits and assistance programs. What help they can receive can depend on when and how they left Bahrain, where they went and whether they were already scheduled to move. 

One active-duty Navy spouse said the family fell into a gap in the military’s evacuation policies because it was already scheduled to leave Bahrain before the war.

The family’s household goods were packed shortly before the first strikes, but the shipment was delayed for months after the war disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The family proceeded to their new duty station without most of their belongings.

Because the family left Bahrain under permanent change-of-station orders instead of a safe-haven authorization, it has been unable to receive per diem or other assistance provided to evacuees. After having paid nearly $40,000 out of pocket, the family has not been able to determine whether and when it will be eligible for assistance. 

Much of the confusion stems from the earliest days of the evacuation, when the military was rushing to move dependents out of danger and families say they received conflicting and confusing information about the benefits they were entitled to as they resettled in safe havens. 

Naval Support Activity Bahrain personnel conduct an emergency response exercise in Manama, Bahrain, on Jan. 27, 2026. The training, held about a month before the Iran war began, simulated a shelter-in-place order, mass casualties and a noncombatant evacuation. (Raphael McCorey/U.S. Navy)

In one instance, early in the war, a mass text message went out to evacuees directing them to contact the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, a nonprofit that aims to assist military families during emergencies.

However, when one spouse called the phone number listed in the announcement, they were connected with the National Bank of Canada, the spouse said. 

One civilian employee who left Bahrain said he has lived in nearly 10 hotels and used seven rental cars since fleeing under missile fire at the start of the war. Because of the slow reimbursement process, he is regularly owed thousands of dollars, he said.

“The government seems unable to decide what they’re going to do with us,” he said. “And even up until now there’s not a lot of certainty on timeline or reimbursement.” 

A teacher in the Pentagon school system who left Bahrain recently took another job at a different overseas posting but is still waiting on reimbursements and household goods to arrive. 

She expects the process could take more than a year and described feeling isolated and confused as she sought help from multiple agencies, often getting conflicting advice. 

At times, she said, it seemed officials were more focused on following procedures and protecting themselves than helping evacuees navigate their individual circumstances.

“I’m really kind of disappointed with the system,” she said. “There’s been no real empathy or sympathy or compassion or anything toward anybody.”

Members of the Bahrain School Class of 2026 pose outside the Defense Department school in Manama, Bahrain. The school’s students and educators were evacuated after the Iran war began and remain scattered across the United States and overseas as Navy officials say dependents cannot return to Bahrain for the foreseeable future. (Department of Defense Education Activity)

One of the biggest complications has been the different rules that apply to active-duty and civilian families. Benefits for civilian employees are governed by State Department rules, even though they work for the Defense Department.

Unless the State Department grants extensions, safe-haven allowances for civilians are set to expire Tuesday, when the evacuation order reaches its 180-day mark, according to information distributed to families in memos and town hall meetings reviewed by Stars and Stripes. 

The State Department did not comment on questions regarding the next steps for civilian evacuees. 

Officials are working on providing additional funds to cover expenses for civilian families, but one spouse, who is now living in the U.S. with her children, said she doesn’t expect the stopgap measure to cover all their expenses.  

The spouse, whose husband is still working his civilian job in Bahrain, described her situation almost as a “reverse deployment.”

“We’re the ones having to face the uncertainty of where we’ll be living in the weeks to come. We’re the ones having to pack up our kids and all the possessions we own and move from one Airbnb/hotel to another time and time again,” she wrote in a message to Stars and Stripes. “The resiliency of the (mainly) women is amazing.” 

“There are multiple moms with newborns doing this,” she added. “I feel like policy makers will never fully grasp or appreciate this.”