New Delhi/Colombo/Kathmandu, Mar 12 (EFE).– 24 million South Asian workers trapped in the Persian Gulf under bombardment without access to shelter or their passports, have forced governments in the region to hastily devise contingency plans.
The migration route between South Asia and the Persian Gulf is one of the world’s largest labor corridors.
Migrants are the backbone of the Gulf’s luxury cities, responsible for building mega-infrastructure projects and maintaining essential services.
For example, in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, foreign workers make up the majority of the resident population.
Victims Across the Region
The escalation of the conflict has already claimed foreign victims in several countries.
According to a tally compiled by Anti-Slavery International, at least three migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal have died in the United Arab Emirates, including a 29-year-old security guard at Abu Dhabi airport.
In Bahrain, a 48-year-old Bangladeshi naval worker was killed by missile debris in an industrial area, while in Oman, a drone directly attacked workers’ accommodations at the port of Duqm.
Furthermore, the attacks have left approximately 70 people of at least 15 Asian and African nationalities injured in incidents such as the one at Kuwait International Airport.
The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and Anti-Slavery International denounced in a joint report that low-income migrants are «routinely excluded» from emergency protocols and denied access to air raid shelters, forcing them to take refuge in precarious accommodations.
Kafala System legal blockade
Under the labor sponsorship system, known as Kafala, employers retain workers’ passports, depriving them of the exit permits required to leave the country.
This blockade is especially critical for domestic workers, most of whom come from countries like Sri Lanka, whose isolation in private residences severely hinders consular contact and evacuation routes.
This fear is also felt in their countries of origin. In Ratnapura, southern Sri Lanka, Y. Samanthi fears for the safety of her 50-year-old sister, Susila, who works as a domestic worker in Kuwait.
»Sometimes, when the sirens sound, it’s impossible to communicate with her,» her sister told EFE, adding that she had been waiting for her return to celebrate the Sinhalese and Tamil New Year.
»Now we only talk about the war,» she added.
Another woman trapped in the system, Kamali (a pseudonym), pretends to laugh when she speaks to her family from Dubai for fear they will overhear their conversations about the attacks.
»We just have to wait. There’s nothing for us at home,» she told EFE from the Gulf, where she says she feels trapped.
South Asia’s engine under attack
With millions of workers in the Gulf countries, Bangladesh is one of the region’s main labor suppliers.
According to statistics from the Bureau of Manpower, Employment, and Training, approximately 4.5 million Bangladeshis work in the Gulf countries, with Saudi Arabia being the primary destination.
The son of Saleh Ahmed, a 55-year-old Bangladeshi man who died in the United Arab Emirates while delivering water, recounted that his father had gone to work unaware that the war had begun.
Nepal, with almost three million citizens in the Gulf, also relies heavily on the remittances they send, which account for about 25% of its GDP.
Kathmandu ruled out an immediate evacuation, perceiving no «imminent threat,» but has suspended new work permits for the region and activated an emergency consular registry that already has 100,000 registered individuals.
Pakistan’s Critical Dependence and the Afghan Limbo
With a diaspora in the Gulf approaching 9 million people, Pakistan relies on its workers to avoid bankruptcy. According to the State Bank, remittances reached a record of nearly $40 billion in 2025.
One of the victims that has generated the most shock is that of Pakistani citizen Murib Zaman, who worked as a driver in Abu Dhabi and died after being struck by debris from another intercepted missile.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the extreme vulnerability extends to Afghan citizens: trapped in a «double exposure,» they are excluded from emergency shelters and, with their consular network collapsed, lack the documents to flee. EFE
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