Anjali Sharma should be in India right now celebrating a cousin’s wedding. Instead, she’s trapped in Doha, Qatar, with the unsettling sound of explosions nearby.

Sharma, 26, said in a phone interview Wednesday that she has been in the Middle Eastern country since Feb. 28, when the airspace there was shut down with the start of U.S. and Israeli military attacks on Iran. She was in the city on a 24-hour layover program that Qatar Airways offers to boost tourism.

Sharma’s predicament is just one of thousands experienced by Americans in the war-torn region, leaving them largely trapped because of a lack of commercial flights home.

The U.S. has told American citizens to leave more than a dozen countries in the region right away using any available commercial transportation. The countries include Iran and Israel, as well as Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Sharma, an Owings Mills native and University of Maryland graduate, was in the desert when the explosions began Saturday. She had to scramble for cover at her hotel.

Within the first five minutes, Sharma said, she saw three or four missiles come into the airspace before apparently being intercepted by defensive weapons. A few minutes after that, she said, she saw “black smoke go up in the sky from one of the buildings from afar.”

She later heard one of the explosions was caused by debris that fell from one of the missiles.

“There was a lot happening,” said Sharma, a graduate of Garrison Forest School in Owings Mills.

Within 15 minutes of the attack, Sharma said, she received a text from her mother, who was traveling with family members from Dallas who were heading to meet her on another flight.

The group originally planned to meet in Qatar and then fly to India. However, the war caused their flight to be rerouted to Cairo and Istanbul. The explosions were continuing as Sharma safely made it back to her hotel.

Sharma said she does not know anyone in Doha.

There are no other Americans in her hotel, she said. She’s kept in contact only through social media with other Americans stuck in the city because none of them wants to violate a shelter-in-place order.

She said she has not been able to reach Qatar Airlines. As a result, she had to find new accommodations and switch hotels. She does not know if she’ll be reimbursed by the airline for the emergency scramble.

Some hotel guests fled the city after receiving news that they could leave the country through its Saudi Arabian border.

Sharma said she originally considered that option but was told her passport was not valid to enter the country because it expires in 5 1/2 months, which missed the cutoff requirement of six months.

She explained that she has spent thousands of dollars between new shelter accommodations and trying to book new airline tickets, which has proven useless with the airspace ban in effect.

Once the ban is lifted, she’s considering going directly to India, which she calls a “second home.” Her mother and cousins arrived there Thursday. The plane ride to India would be three hours versus a half-day trip back to the United States, she said.

“I feel a little bit safer going to India,” said Sharma, a software engineer who has lived in Arlington, Virginia, since April.

Sharma is doubtful the airspace will open as promised on Friday.

The U.S. Embassy is closed in Doha because of the threat level. She’s been told, because of that, she should not expect assistance from its personnel.

Other tourists there have been told by the U.S. Department of State Consular Affairs to enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program and also shelter in place if they can. Most important, they’ve been told not to rely on the U.S. government for any evacuation, Sharma said.

“That’s the timeline as far as I’ve gotten, which is absolutely nothing,” she said.

Sharma expects to have a long cry when she’s finally able to leave the country and reach her destination.

“I haven’t panicked and balled up and shut down yet. I’ve been trying to keep as busy as possible and also just keep up to date with the news as best as I can,” she said, adding that social media has been both a good and a bad thing, with verified accounts providing factual updates from the region while others spread misinformation.

“It’s a little scary when I do hear the explosions in the middle of the night or in the morning because I don’t have anyone to really talk to,” she said. “And that’s when the anxiety kicks in and things really start to settle in that I am by myself out here and I don’t know what’s happening next.”

The U.S. State Department said Tuesday it was “actively securing” military and charter aircraft to fly Americans out of the region. It said it was in contact with nearly 3,000 citizens seeking assistance or information.

Maryland U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said in an email that his office has been “flooded with requests for assistance from Marylanders who are trapped and lacking any recourse.”

“The Administration’s sustained efforts to hamstring our Foreign Service and cut staff at our embassies are only further hampering our ability to protect Americans,” Van Hollen, a Democrat, wrote. “This chaos was avoidable, and it’s unacceptable.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.