The lives of migrant workers in Dubai under the shadow of war

For migrant workers in Dubai, a free stress management course offers only a brief moment of peace. They face numerous difficulties every day, such as debt, loneliness and long working hours. In recent months, these problems have been compounded by the fear of missile attacks in the region. This combination of pressures makes their lives even more difficult and uncertain.

On a recent Sunday morning, Laxmi Parekh stood under a low ceiling, lit by dim, constantly flashing neon lights, in the cafeteria of a housing complex in Dubai. Across from her was a group of workers - painters, carpenters and electricians - to whom she was to give stress management training.

"Who among you knows what has happened here for the last 43 days?" asked Ms. Parekh, 59, who works as a volunteer for the nonprofit organization SmartLife.
"War situation," someone shouted from the front row.

Since the war between the United States, Israel and Iran began on February 28, Iran has fired more missiles and drones at the United Arab Emirates than at any other country. According to the UAE’s Ministry of Defense, these attacks have killed at least 10 civilians and injured about 230 others. Most of the dead and wounded were migrant workers, like the men gathered in that simple canteen, where the sound of metal plates and spoons clanging could be heard as Ms. Parekh spoke.

For two years, she has been organizing weekly mental health workshops in dormitories where migrant workers live in Dubai. In addition to her day job as an IT specialist, she devotes her free time to the organization “SmartLife,” which offers free English courses, mentoring programs, and social activities to communities of migrant workers. A large part of the organization’s funding comes from the companies that employ these workers and from the financial transfer companies that help send money to their families back home.

In March, as the conflict in the region escalated, Ms. Parekh began adapting her training to include discussions about the war.
"How many of you are afraid?" she asked the 40 or so men gathered in the hall, most of them from India, Pakistan and Nepal.
Immediately the room filled with opposition. Nervous laughter, overlapping voices, and strong denials were heard.
"Not even for a minute," said one.
"You shouldn't let fear control you," said another.
"Afraid of what?" someone else asked.
Many of these workers had already gone through difficult times in their lives: debt, unemployment, political unrest, and climate disasters. The consequences of the war were just an additional stress on their already difficult lives.

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"We are here to make money"

During her sessions, Ms. Parekh tried to give them practical advice on coping with anxiety: breathing slowly and in a controlled manner during alarm sirens, maintaining a daily routine, and communicating calmly with anxious families waiting for them at home.
"Yes, we will hear explosions, metal fragments may fall somewhere, you may see smoke," she said. "But think of it as if it were an Indian movie. A bad guy's bullet is stopped by a good guy's bullet. That's exactly what is happening in the sky above us."

However, despite their teacher trying to calm them down and the men trying to show strength, the war was leaving visible traces on them.

From the first day of the conflict, when he saw a fireball explode in the sky after a missile was neutralized overhead during his weekly shopping trip, Ramapathi Sharma, 48, a carpenter from the Indian city of Gorakhpur, said he had begun to suffer from insomnia.
He lay in bed unable to sleep, his thoughts constantly wandering to his three children. He thought especially of his youngest son, who was in ninth grade, but also of the promise he had made to his brother in the last moments of his life: that he would take care of his family.
Every now and then, the low hum of fighter jets patrolling the sky would be heard like a distant rumble. The loud sounds would make the windows of the room shake, while right behind them came the erratic, frightened chirping of birds. More than once, he had seriously considered quitting his job after 22 years in the United Arab Emirates.
"Of course I'm scared," Sharma said.
But his fear was not so much about what might happen to him. His greatest concern was for those who depended on him.
He turned to his friend of more than twenty years, Gopal Sharma, 47, from the Indian city of Siwan, who worked as a team leader at the same company and was sitting next to him.
“If something happens to us here,” he asked, “how will our families survive?”
“The real question, brother,” replied Gopal Sharma, who is not related to Ramapathi Sharma, “is if even if we return home, who will give us a job that pays as much as we earn here?”
An unknown number of migrant workers across the United Arab Emirates were making the same calculations in their minds: no matter how severe the war might become, could they afford to leave?
Since the discovery of oil in the 1960s - a stroke of luck that sparked a massive construction boom in the Emirates - the country has relied heavily on foreign workers like two friends. An estimated 2.2 million construction and other manual workers, mostly from South Asia and Africa, make up the majority of the expatriate community. Meanwhile, expatriates themselves make up more than 80 percent of the country's population.
And no matter how hard the work is, how long the hours are, or how many rockets fall from the sky, these workers can earn much more money in the Emirates than in their home countries.
Azan Tahir, 26, a delivery driver from Attock, Pakistan, spent his days transporting food and other goods across Dubai, while missiles and drones strafed overhead. His GPS signals were often disrupted or scrambled to thwart airstrikes, which meant he ended up at the wrong address and faced frustrated customers on the phone.
"In this job you have to stay calm," Tahir said. "The war situation may change from day to day, but our needs don't. We are here to make money."

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New challenge

As the fight continued, the two Sharma friends created a daily routine to cope with it.
They would wake up together before dawn, make tea, and take slow walks around the grounds of the dormitory where they lived. Before leaving for their shifts as carpenters in different hotels, they would sit and pray together. During the workday, whenever an alarm sounded requiring immediate shelter, they would text each other to make sure they were both okay.
Ms. Parekh, the stress management trainer, has noticed a noticeable change in the emotional state of the migrant workers she visits, as the war and the fragile ceasefire have continued for a long time.
According to her, workers - especially those who have recently arrived in the Emirates - are increasingly isolating themselves and spending hours in front of their phones. They read the news non-stop, watch videos from conflict zones and constantly check ticket prices to return home.
In one case, she recounted, a worker had started grinding his teeth so hard in his sleep that he had severely damaged his teeth. In another case, a man suffered a nervous breakdown and became violent, attacking strangers and lashing out at his friends.
This change has created a new challenge for Ms. Parekh. She sees her role not only as helping with stress management in general, but also as an effort to help these workers cope with the difficulties of life in Dubai so that they can continue to work and live there.
“I often tell them: you are experiencing all this anxiety and uncertainty, while your families back home are calling you and telling you that money doesn't matter. You are starting to doubt because a friend tells you that he is returning to his hometown. Then I tell them: look, I am here in front of you and I am not leaving,” said Ms. Parekh.
Recently, she was asked to provide psychological counseling in an unusual case. Outside the territory of a housing complex for workers, several crates of illegally produced alcohol were discovered buried in the sand.
Alcoholic beverages are expensive and difficult to purchase outside of licensed stores, so some migrant workers try to produce them themselves.
“Madam, what do you expect?” one of them asked. “A laborer to go to a liquor store and buy a bottle of Johnny Walker?”
Just before the end of the last session on stress management, Ms. Parekh played a relaxing video. The soothing sounds of meditative bowls, gongs, and melodic bells filled the cafeteria speakers.
“Sometimes all we need is to close our eyes and breathe,” she said.
After the workshop, Ramapathi Sharma grabbed a glass of milky tea and sat on a wooden bench outside the building. He called his wife and, as usual, turned the camera to show her the distant view of the 163-story Burj Khalifa, shining on the horizon beyond the sand-whitened apartment blocks covered in scaffolding and clothes hanging to dry.
For that brief moment, amidst all the tension and uncertainty of war, the workers' camp returned to its usual weekend rhythm - a fragile but precious normality that helped its inhabitants move forward.