“Middle East Tensions Threaten South Asia’s Migrant Workers”

…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…

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…