When Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun left his home country, Bangladesh, fifteen years ago, he had a plan: work in Saudi Arabia, save what he could, send money home, and one day return to buy a house for his family. He met his son only once, when the boy was small. This year, he finally made his dream come true. Instead, his body arrived in a coffin. On March 8, 2026, a missile hit the workers' camp where he was, and he died from severe burns shortly after. He was only 35 years old.
Mamun's story is not unique; migrant workers make up the majority of the population in many Gulf Arab states. They work in scorching heat on many infrastructure projects. When the United States and Israel went to war with Iran in February 2026, these workers found themselves caught in the middle of a conflict they had no responsibility for starting and no power to escape. According to the Coalition for Labour Justice for Migrants in the Gulf, at least 24 migrant workers have been killed across Gulf countries since the war began, including eight mariners lost at sea. Human Rights Watch interviewed 38 Indian, Nepali, and Bangladeshi workers across Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE in March 2026, and what they found was pain: workers were being restricted from bomb shelters, couldn't understand evacuation warnings because they didn't speak Arabic, and were left in the dark by employers who refused to share emergency plans. "My job is at a hospital, so the work has not stopped," one worker in Qatar told the organization. "Sometimes explosions come at night, sometimes during the day, and I have left my child back home."
What makes this situation so difficult to escape is the economic trap these workers are caught in. The kafala sponsorship system ties a worker's legal residency to their employer, which means changing jobs or leaving the country requires the employer's permission. Therefore, for many, going home is not really an option. Migration to the Gulf is usually financed through loans to cover recruitment fees and travel costs, and a worker who leaves abruptly risks losing both their income and the chance of repaying that debt. Meanwhile, the money these workers send home is important for their countries. Remittances from the Gulf account for roughly 1% of India's GDP, 3% to 5% of Bangladesh's, Pakistan's, and Sri Lanka's, and nearly 10% of Nepal's. With households back home struggling with rising costs and governments trying hard to control inflation, these remittances have become more important than ever. However, the war causes workforce that cannot afford to leave and cannot safely stay to be trapped between missiles and debt.
Human Rights Watch has pointed out that Gulf states need to take emergency measures, including income support, fair wages, access to social security, and airfare assistance for workers who want to return home. But the organization also points out that this crisis has merely exposed gaps in labor protections that existed long before the war. "Governments and employers should take concrete steps to protect workers caught in the crossfire thousands of miles from home," said Michael Page, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, "and who, despite significant risks, are doing essential jobs across the Gulf". However, for families like Mamun, those actions are already too late. His widow, Sadia Islam Sarmin, said: "We don't know what we will do next."
Source: https://www.ecoi.net/en/document/2138706.html