Hundreds of Pakistani Shi’ites deported from the UAE say they lost jobs, savings, and belongings overnight as fears grow over sectarian profiling during the Iran conflict.
WEBDESK – MediaBites News
Hundreds of Pakistani Shi’ite workers returning from the United Arab Emirates are describing scenes of fear, detention, and financial ruin after being abruptly deported during the ongoing Iran conflict.
Many say they arrived back in Pakistan with no luggage, frozen bank savings, and shattered careers built over decades in the Gulf.
The reports, now drawing international concern, have triggered alarm inside Pakistan’s Shi’ite community and prompted Human Rights Watch to begin investigating what it called “deeply alarming” allegations.
According to Reuters, more than 100 deported Pakistani Shi’ites from Punjab’s Chakwal district alone have returned home in recent weeks after allegedly being detained and forced onto flights without explanation.
A database compiled by Pakistani Shi’ite political organization Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen reportedly lists around 7,500 deportations from the UAE since February, when the Iran-Israel conflict escalated following U.S. strikes on Tehran.
Community leaders believe the real number may be much higher.
Several deportees told Reuters they were never informed of the reason for their expulsion.
Some claimed authorities confiscated phones, questioned them about Iran, and froze access to their personal belongings and savings accumulated over years of work.
“In minutes, everything was over,” said one worker who spent two decades building a business in Dubai before being deported.
Another deportee from Dubai Metro described being handcuffed, detained for days, and eventually loaded onto an overcrowded airport bus alongside dozens of other Shi’ite detainees.
“No one told us why we were being deported,” one man said.
Pakistan’s government has publicly denied that the deportations were sectarian, insisting the UAE only removed individuals violating local regulations.
However, a senior Pakistani official reportedly acknowledged that Islamabad was quietly reviewing the situation after receiving thousands of returning workers, most of them Shi’ites.
Rights groups say concerns over discrimination are growing as regional tensions linked to Iran increasingly affect Gulf security policies.
Human Rights Watch and Geneva-based MENA Rights Group said they have documented previous cases involving arbitrary detention and disappearances targeting Shi’ite foreign nationals in Gulf states.
The issue carries major economic implications for Pakistan, where remittances from nearly 1.8 million workers in the UAE contribute billions of dollars annually to the country’s struggling economy.
For many families in Pakistan, the sudden deportations have triggered emotional and financial devastation.
Across villages in Chakwal and Kurram, returning workers now face unemployment, uncertainty, and the painful realization that years of sacrifice abroad disappeared almost overnight.
“I was back to zero in the blink of an eye,” one deported worker said quietly.
