Each morning, the first rays of sunlight hit the towering skyscrapers of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, reflecting off their glass and steel. The streets hum with morning traffic. Among the vehicles weaving through the city is a taxi driven by Vikas Pandith, a twenty-seven-year-old from Assam, India. For the past five years, he has navigated the streets of Abu Dhabi and other parts of the UAE, sending nearly every rupee he earns to his family thousands of miles away.
“It is not just a job,” Vikas says. “It is my parents’ life, my siblings’ education.” He pauses briefly, before adding, “If I stop earning, they suffer. Every decision made far away feels like it lands on us.”
Since the start of the United States and Israel’s war on Iran, increased security and disruptions have cut into his earnings. One day, he says he lost half a day’s income because of security restrictions and movement disruptions across the city. He told his parents he might have to send less money home back to Assam. “They were worried the whole week,” Vikas says. “My mother kept calling again and again.”
Up the Persian Gulf, in Qatar, twenty-five-year-old Ismail Ahmad from Bangladesh arranges coffee trays in a bustling Doha cafe. In Bahrain, Bishnu Pradas, a twenty-six-year-old from Nepal, supervises scaffolding at a high-rise construction site.
They all share a quiet fear: that decisions made in Washington, Tehran, and Tel Aviv could disrupt their wages, endanger their lives, and threaten the livelihoods of their families back home.
Tensions in the Gulf have risen in recent months, driven by growing confrontation between Iran, Israel, and the United States. Missile strikes, along with retaliatory attacks and fears of wider escalation, have created uncertainty across the region.
Though media coverage largely focuses on oil markets or military strategy, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East directly impacts migrant labor. The United States’s foreign sanctions, military troop movements, and diplomatic maneuvers all influence Gulf State economies, which rely heavily on energy exports and regional stability.
For South Asian countries like India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, which send millions of workers to the Gulf, the impact is acute. Any disruption in jobs, wages, or safety directly affects families and communities back home that depend heavily on remittances.
“Families depend on us,” Bishnu says. “Political tensions that seem far away feel very close to home. Sometimes we talk among ourselves at the site as we follow the news more closely than anyone, because it decides whether we can work tomorrow.”
Millions of South Asians migrate to the Gulf for economic opportunity every year. The International Labour Organization estimates more than twenty-four million migrant workers are employed across the Gulf region, most of whom are from Asia and many of whom work in high-risk sectors such as construction, hospitality, and transport. Heat stress, unsafe workplaces, lack of medical care, and gender disparities in social security and protection make these jobs dangerous even in times of peace.
In 2022, India alone received more than $111 billion in remittances from workers worldwide, while Nepal received nearly $8.5 billion and Bangladesh received about $22 billion. For rural households, these funds pay for food, schooling, medical care, and home repairs.
Vikas’s parents, Ramesh and Anjali Pandith, live in a modest home in Assam. “Vikas’s work keeps our children in school,” Anjali says. “If he stops sending money, we cannot survive. We wait for his call every week and if he doesn’t call, we start worrying that something has gone wrong.”
In Nepal, Bishnu’s parents recount the year they repaired their home after floods, funded entirely by his earnings. “Every delay in his salary affects us immediately,” his mother says. “There is no backup. We depend on him for everything, even medicine.”
Remittances also sustain local economies in workers’ home countries. Shops, markets, and small businesses rely on this money for daily transactions, credit repayments, stocking goods, and paying wages. Any disruption ripples across entire villages, leaving many vulnerable to financial strain.
“Sometimes, when my brother’s salary is late, the whole village feels it,” says Sameer, a twenty-nine-year-old from Dhaka, Bangladesh. “People wait at home, shops close early, and even schools see delays in payments. It is not just one family but it is the community. When money stops, everything slows down.”
Beyond economic insecurity, migrant workers in the Gulf face daily physical and emotional risks. Many are bound to their employers under the kafala sponsorship system, a legal structure used across Gulf Cooperation Council countries that ties a worker’s legal status directly to their employer, often limiting their ability to change jobs, leave the country, or escape unsafe working and living conditions.
“In my building, people work long hours, sometimes in 50 degree [Celsius, or 122 degree Fahrenheit] heat,” Bishnu says. “If there is unrest, no one checks if we are safe. We are invisible. We just keep working because we have no option.”
In Qatar, Ismail says he sleeps in a small room shared with four other workers. “We wake up before dawn, work twelve to fourteen hours, then sleep in a room with no proper ventilation,” he adds. “Sometimes I think about what would happen if something went wrong—there is no safety net.”
Estimates suggest as many as 10,000 Asian migrant workers die annually in Gulf countries, with many deaths left unexplained or linked to harsh working conditions. In 2024, the Mangaf building fire in Kuwait killed forty-nine migrant workers, highlighting the human cost of unsafe housing and labor systems.
The recent escalation between the United States, Israel, and Iran has amplified the risks workers face, says labor rights researcher Rejimon Kuttappan. Missile and drone strikes have targeted civilian areas in parts of the region, raising fears among migrant communities. Many workers live and work near airports, oil facilities, ports, and highrises, all of which can become potential targets in the military conflict.
“The kafala system makes workers extremely vulnerable as it ties their legal status and survival to a single employer,” Kuttappan says. “In emergencies, this effectively becomes a trap. Employers can withhold passports, deny exit, or abandon workers altogether. Migrants are often excluded from emergency responses, leaving them without access to shelters, evacuation plans, or reliable information.”
“Wage theft, unpaid leave, and sudden dismissals also spike during periods of instability, cutting off remittances overnight,” he adds.
Kuttappan says migrant workers are often overlooked in such situations.
“Millions are effectively trapped—often without passports—denied access to shelters, and left in overcrowded labor camps or worksites near potential [bombing] targets,” Kuttappan says. “Even as flights are cancelled and airspaces close, many are holding their ground—not out of choice, but because remittances sustain entire families back home.”
Governments across South Asia, particularly India, have been closely monitoring the situation, issuing advisories, setting up helplines and facilitating evacuation and repatriation flights for citizens in the Gulf. But for workers, leaving is not simple. Staying exposes them to uncertainty and risk—but returning home often means losing critical income.
On a construction site in Bahrain, Bishnu supervises scaffolding under intense heat.
“Every message I send home feels heavy,” he says. “If this situation gets worse, there will be fewer jobs. My family depends on me. I cannot fail them.” He pauses, looking up at the unfinished structure. “Sometimes we talk about going back,” he adds. “But going back means no income. So we stay.”
Similarly, the Doha cafe where Ismail works remains busy, but the uncertainty lingers: “If tensions escalate, our jobs could be gone overnight.”
He recalls a coworker whose contract was terminated earlier this year amid rising regional tensions. “He went home empty-handed. His family was waiting for money. That fear stays with me every day.”
Back in Assam, Vikas’s parents anxiously check their phone each month. Delayed remittances mean skipped meals, postponed school fees, and unpaid medical bills.
“Every month without money is a struggle,” Anjali says. “We plan everything around what he sends.”
In Nepal, Rani, a thirty-four-year-old whose husband works in Qatar, shares similar stress.
“When [my husband’s] salary was delayed, I borrowed from neighbors just to feed my children,” she says. “Sometimes I felt helpless. We depend so much on what happens far away, but we cannot see or control it.”
Sameer worries constantly about his younger brother in Bangladesh. “I had to choose between school fees and hospital bills for my father,” he says. “It is a constant balancing act.”
From dawn to dusk, migrant workers in the Gulf live under pressure, enduring heat, long hours, and minimal downtime. Many survive on shared meals, sleep in crowded rooms, and carry the emotional weight of distance.
“Some days I don’t even have time to call home,” Vikas says. “I eat in the taxi, sleep when I can, and think of my family constantly.”
Ismail says, “It is as if the distance is measured in fear and hunger.”
Somewhere between the Gulf and the villages waiting thousands of miles away, lives remain suspended, shaped in real time by decisions far beyond their reach.
“We keep working,” Bishnu says, “because we have no choice. Everything depends on this.”