The recent attacks on Saudi Arabia have brought the human cost of this conflict into sharp and painful focus for Pakistan. A Pakistani national was among 12 killed in a missile strike on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport. In August, Pakistani crew members were killed when a commercial vessel was attacked in the Red Sea.
For the millions of Pakistanis living and working in the Kingdom and across the Gulf, daily life has been reshaped by anxiety. Those who have built their livelihoods in these economies now face deep uncertainty, and attacks on airports across the region have shattered assumptions about the safety of civilian infrastructure.
The channels through which this conflict reaches Pakistani households are well established. Migration is a household strategy to secure income and insure against shocks, and remittances are how that insurance works. When conflict disrupts a migrant’s ability to send money home, the household loses its most reliable buffer against poverty. World Bank estimates suggest remittance-receiving households in Pakistan face a risk of poverty up to 13 percentage points lower than others, and remittances are credited with lifting more than 47 million Pakistanis out of poverty between 2001 and 2018. IMF research confirms that these flows are mainly spent on household consumption, functioning as informal insurance.
Saudi Arabia remains Pakistan’s largest source of worker remittances, and the IMF has flagged this lifeline as fragile. The Fund has identified exposure to the Gulf as Pakistan’s most acute external vulnerability, noting that 81 percent of its energy imports and 55 percent of its remittances, equivalent to about 9 percent of national income, come from these economies. A significant disruption or a large-scale return of workers could weigh heavily on these inflows. Earlier this year, the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics estimated that a prolonged conflict could keep half a million new workers from reaching the Middle East in 2026 and reduce remittances by up to $4 billion.
The impact on women deserves particular attention. When men migrate, the women who stay behind often become heads of their households. Research from Pakistan shows that when money from abroad stops arriving, it is these women who absorb the shock, cutting back on food, pulling children out of school or taking on informal work. The psychological toll on women managing alone, unsure whether the next transfer will come, never appears in any fiscal ledger.
This conflict is not of Pakistan’s making, yet its human cost is borne by workers and families who sought honest work abroad.
Dr. Vaqar Ahmed
The disruption is also visible in travel and logistics. Pakistan International Airlines temporarily suspended its flights to Riyadh, and dozens of flights between the two countries have been canceled in recent days. Similar suspensions followed attacks on other Gulf airports in recent months. The immediate victims are workers abroad and travelers in transit, but also Umrah pilgrims, many of whom saved for years to make the journey and are now stranded, unsure when they can travel.
Flights also carry cargo. Small and medium-sized Pakistani businesses in pharmaceuticals, textiles, surgical instruments and food are facing delays, higher freight costs and uncertainty. When flights stop, the loss is not only stranded passengers and goods. It reaches the firms whose cash flow depends on timely delivery, and the workers whose jobs depend on those firms surviving.
Islamabad has taken some steps. Pakistan’s missions in Saudi Arabia have set up airport facilitation teams, and the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis is devising a strategy to redirect labor exports toward emerging sectors such as health care and emergency response. The prime minister has directed the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation to speed up welfare measures for returning migrants and for the families of workers who have been killed or injured.
Pakistan can learn from countries with more comprehensive systems. The Philippines has scaled up financial assistance for distressed workers and offers reintegration programs for returnees, with livelihood support, help finding employment and waived placement fees. Bangladesh provides legal support to workers abroad and those returning home, and links them to insurance, banking and emergency services. These systems recognize that protecting migrant workers is not charity. It is a core function of the state.
This conflict is not of Pakistan’s making, yet its human cost is borne by workers and families who sought honest work abroad. Protecting this lifeline through safe travel corridors, secure remittance channels and support for families is both a humanitarian and an economic necessity. A stable flow of remittances sustains every household that depends on it, and a country with no comparable source of external financing cannot afford to let it falter.
-Dr. Vaqar Ahmed is an economist and former civil servant who has advised multilateral development banks and governments across Asia and the Middle East on fiscal policy, trade reform and investment strategy.
