He had met his six-year-old son only once. A few days together in a life otherwise spent apart.
For 15 years, Mohammad Abdullah Al Mamun worked in Saudi Arabia, sending money home to his family in one of the poorest areas of Bangladesh.
This year, he had planned to return, build a larger house with his savings and spend time with the child he barely knew.
Then, on March 8, a missile struck his workers’ camp. He suffered severe burns and later died.
He was among more than two dozen foreign workers killed across the Middle East after the United States and Israel attacked Iran in February.
Tens of millions of foreign workers have helped build the Gulf Arab states’ modern, oil-fuelled economies – with many not fully sharing in their prosperity.
Now they face an even sharper dilemma: Keep working in the Middle East, where wages are far higher, hoping that a shaky ceasefire endures; or return to already poor countries where prices have soared because of the conflict.
Mamun’s choice was made for him. He arrived home in a coffin earlier this month.
“We don’t know what we will do next,” said his widow, Sadia Islam Sarmin.
Migrant workers make up a majority of the population in many Gulf Arab states.
Westerners, Arabs and Indians dominate business and finance, while labourers from poor countries in Asia and Africa toil for long hours in scorching temperatures at oil facilities and construction sites – often with few protections.
The Coalition for Labour Justice for Migrants in the Gulf, an advocacy group, said few had access to bomb shelters and many were stranded by the conflict.
It says attacks killed at least 24 foreign workers in the Gulf and four in Israel as Iran and allied armed groups launched waves of missile and drones strikes. Their count includes eight mariners killed at sea.
“It’s a very precarious situation for migrant workers,” said Udaya Wagle, who studies labour and migration at the Northern Arizona University.
A ceasefire was announced in early April, but negotiations to end the conflict have repeatedly stalled.
Iran has effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global oil and gas, and says it will only reopen it if the conflict ends and the United States lifts its blockade.
The resulting spike in the price of gas, fertiliser and other goods has hit Asian countries particularly hard.
Mamun’s family awoke on March 9 to phone calls saying the 35-year-old had been hurt.
Video footage shot by another worker showed him sitting in the open, badly burned and bleeding, crying out for help.
“He never imagined he would be hurt. That a missile would fall on him,” said Maruf Hasain, his younger brother.
Workers like Mamun are the most vulnerable since they do the “most dirty, dangerous and difficult” jobs, said Shariful Islam Hasan of the Bangladeshi development organisation BRAC.
In Qatar, a 27-year-old Bangladeshi factory worker laboured through 12-hour shifts as missiles flew overhead.
Shrapnel from one strike fell near his living quarters. When alarms sounded, he said, workers went to a designated room.
He earns less than US$400 (RM1,585) monthly and sends two-thirds home.
“We have no choice but to keep working,” he said on condition of anonymity for fear of angering the authorities.
Qatar enacted several reforms in the run-up to hosting the 2022 World Cup, including the partial dismantling of a system that tied workers to their employers. But activists say abuses are still widespread and that workers have few avenues to pursue justice.
Ahmed al-Aliyli, a taxi driver in Qatar, has not sent money home to his family in Egypt for two months.
He once earned as much as US$3,000 (RM11,887) a month, but his income has plunged to a third of that as the conflict has disrupted travel.
“We are the collateral damage of this war,” he said.
A slowdown in key sectors like real estate and construction will hit migrant workers directly, said Hasan of BRAC.
Workers from Bangladesh and Pakistan are especially vulnerable, as they are often employed informally and without fixed contracts, he said.
Despite reforms in some countries, work permits are also often tied to a single employer and, in some cases, workers are effectively stranded, according to the labour coalition.
It warned that some employers may use the conflict to withhold wages, deny leave or carry out arbitrary dismissals.
When the conflict began, Mamun’s mother, Shahida Khatun, urged him to come home.
He had been saving up since November.
In his last call home, he promised his younger brother and sisters he would pay for their studies, that he would build a larger house for his parents and return for good this spring.
Now, his family is struggling to recover his wages and piece together a life without him.
“The pain of losing a child. There are no words to describe the agony,” Kathun said.
For many workers, going home would mean giving up a steady income and much higher wages.
Marlene Flores, a Filipina worker in Qatar, said she felt the shudder each time a missile was intercepted. But the tax-free pay and health insurance made it feel safer – in a way – than the Philippines, which has declared a national energy emergency”.
“It’s not easy for me to say,” she admitted, “But I would really stay here.” — AP
