ISLAMABAD: When a fellow villager returned from Saudi Arabia and came to offer condolences, Aziz Ullah Khan thought of the homecoming his own son would never make and the house he had promised to finish.

His son, Rizwanullah, 38, was killed in an Oct. 11 Houthi attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, where he worked as a porter carrying passengers’ luggage. He had left his village in northwestern Pakistan to escape poverty, build a brick home for his family and pay for his children’s education.

His death brought the consequences of renewed fighting between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement to a household dependent on money sent from abroad. Saudi Arabia is home to approximately 2.7 million Pakistanis and is Pakistan’s largest source of workers’ remittances.

“If my son had come, my children would have gone out to meet him, and I would have gone to him, but my son has been handed over to the soil,” Aziz Ullah, a 62-year-old farmer, told Arab News.

Rizwanullah leaves behind a widow, two sons aged eight and four, a one-year-old daughter and elderly parents who depended on his earnings.

The family lives in Aleman village in upper Salarzai, a mountainous part of Bajaur district near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. Limited employment opportunities have led villagers, including Rizwanullah and his brother, to seek work in the Gulf.

Saudi authorities said the Oct. 11 airport attack killed one Pakistani national and injured 11 other people. It came a day after a separate strike on the airport killed 13 people and wounded more than 300. The attacks disrupted flights through a major hub used by workers, business travelers and Muslim pilgrims.

The Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen, have been fighting the country’s Saudi-backed government for years. Hostilities with Saudi Arabia intensified again in July after a prolonged period of relative calm following a UN-brokered truce in 2022. The renewed fighting has become another front in the wider regional conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran.

The threat has persisted since Rizwanullah’s death. On Sunday, Saudi-led coalition officials reported intercepting two ballistic missiles directed toward the southern city of Khamis Mushayt and a drone in the Riyadh region. Coalition airstrikes have also continued against Houthi targets in Yemen.

UNFINISHED HOME

For Aziz Ullah, the loss is measured partly in the unfinished walls of the house his son had hoped to build.

“He had started building a house, and the state of it is that not even half, only one-fifth of it is complete, and the rest remains undone due to necessity, because he didn’t have the money,” he said.

Construction stopped last year when the family ran short of money. Rizwanullah had promised to buy more bricks so work could resume.

“He used to give me a lot of courage, saying, ‘Baba, don’t worry about anything, I am sending money, I will buy bricks for you, and God willing, you will build this house.’ But death did not give him time and he passed away,” his father said.

Such transfers pay for everyday expenses, schooling and construction in households across Pakistan. Workers in Saudi Arabia sent home $899.1 million in September alone, according to Pakistan’s central bank, money that supports families while providing the country with much-needed foreign currency.

When news of the airport attack reached the family, Rizwanullah’s brother, Muhammad Tahir, who works in Jeddah on Saudi Arabia’s western coast, set off for Riyadh.

Tahir said he drove for 10 hours because flights were unavailable following the strikes. He had already feared the worst.

“When I arrived in Riyadh, I learned he had been martyred at the airport,” Tahir told Arab News.

Rizwanullah’s remains were flown back to Pakistan last week. Thousands of mourners traveled along dusty, unpaved mountain roads to attend his funeral prayers in Bajaur.

HIS CHILDREN’S FUTURE

Rizwanullah had stayed in regular contact with his friend and relative Ismail Jamal. They last spoke three days before his death, exchanging news about friends and people back home.

“When I heard the news of his martyrdom, the ground slipped from under my feet, and the whole world turned upside down for me,” Jamal said.

He said the loss was felt among workers from other countries who had known Rizwanullah in Saudi Arabia.

“Not just the people of his own region and the people from around here where he was staying, but everyone, even people from India and Bangladesh were crying after him,” Jamal said. “Neither do I feel at peace, nor can I believe that he has been martyred.”

Jamal appealed to the Pakistani and Saudi governments to help secure the children’s future, particularly their education.

“Every person has a desire for their children to get an education, a good education, and to reach a good standing,” he said. “We appeal to our government and the government of Saudi Arabia to definitely do something so that the future of his children can be set on the right track.”

For Aziz Ullah, his son’s final promise keeps returning.

Rizwanullah had learned that his father was short of money and had said he would send funds within a day or two.

“I found out that you don’t have expense money, so I am sending it,” his father recalled him saying in their last phone call. “That was what he said to me, and that very conversation is what keeps coming back to my mind.”