Pakistani Shiites Deported From UAE Return Home to Frozen Savings and No Work
More than 100 Shi’ite Muslims have returned to Pakistan’s Chakwal district from the United Arab Emirates without jobs, luggage, or access to the savings they spent years accumulating abroad, Reuters reported on Sunday, May 25. They are among potentially thousands of Shi’ites deported from the UAE to Pakistan during the Iran war, raising alarm in Pakistan’s Shi’ite community and prompting Human Rights Watch to investigate. AL-MonitorAL-Monitor
The deportations have accelerated since February 28, when the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran, and they now sit at the intersection of a widening geopolitical rupture between Islamabad and Abu Dhabi.
What Happened to the Deportees
Reuters reviewed immigration documents, visa-status screenshots and flight details for 103 Pakistanis who said they were deported Shi’ites, interviewing 24 of them. The picture that emerged was consistent across accounts: detention with little warning, confiscation of phones, and removal on overcrowded transport to the airport. AL-Monitor
A 38-year-old former Dubai Metro manager who said he was deported after 16 years in the emirate told Reuters that police took his phones, handcuffed him and, after detaining him for nine days, loaded him onto a darkened, overcrowded bus to the airport. “I was back to zero in the blink of an eye,” he said. AL-Monitor
A neighbour who had worked in construction described being asked about his finances during questioning. “Then they asked whether I fund Iran,” said the 41-year-old, who asked not to be named because he hoped to pursue work in another Gulf state. AL-Monitor
Hamid Ali Shah, a civil engineer who had been working for Etihad Rail, the UAE’s national railway operator, told RFE/RL that he was ordered to report to police in early April. “After two hours of questioning, I was bundled into a van along with 13 others and taken to an immigration detention centre. On April 6, I was put on a flight and deported from the UAE,” he said. deccanherald
Scale of the Deportations
A database compiled by the Pakistani Shi’ite political organisation Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen, seen by Reuters, lists 7,500 Pakistani Shi’ites deported from the Gulf Arab state since February 28. Group spokesperson Mohsin Abidi said the actual number was likely far higher. AL-Monitor
Several Shi’ite community leaders across Pakistan told Middle East Eye that thousands of Pakistani workers — most of them Shi’a Muslims employed in the UAE for years — had been deported since mid-April under opaque circumstances. TIMES OF ISLAMABAD
Reuters could not determine the criteria UAE authorities used to select the Pakistanis for deportation. The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment on a list of questions from Reuters about the deportations. AL-Monitor
Frozen Savings and Lasting Harm
The financial consequences are severe and, in many cases, unresolved. Across Pakistan — in Chakwal, in Skardu, in villages in Kurram district — families are trying to recover savings frozen in UAE banks, reckon with debt taken on to fund jobs that no longer exist, and absorb the consequences of men returned without warning, stripped of lives they spent a decade building. NewsX
Workers expelled from the UAE arrived in Pakistan stamped with tags marking them as “jailed” or “absconding” — records that will follow them to future job applications, visa attempts, and border crossings. Mysteel
One community leader in Gilgit-Baltistan told New Lines Magazine that deportees who had spent thousands of dollars to intermediaries to secure their UAE jobs had been surviving on one meal a day to send money home. “They are very distressed,” he said, adding that there were limited opportunities in an underdeveloped region like Gilgit-Baltistan. “I personally know 60-70 people who’ve returned.” Organiser Weekly
Pakistan and UAE Government Responses
Pakistan’s Interior Ministry rejected the reports on May 8, describing them as “vicious propaganda” and “fake news.” The ministry said no country- or sect-specific deportations were being carried out by any state, including the UAE, adding that deportations were a routine process conducted in accordance with host countries’ immigration laws. AL-Monitor
A Pakistani government spokesman told reporters that the Consulate General in Dubai issued around 2,714 emergency travel documents between January and April 2026, while the embassy in Abu Dhabi issued 780. “Our embassy is in touch with the UAE authorities,” he said, adding that the Pakistani community had, by and large, been cooperating with local authorities in the UAE. deccanherald
The UAE has not issued any public explanation for the removals.
Rights Groups and Independent Assessment
“The crackdown on Shia Muslims in the UAE is not new,” Falah Sayed, human rights officer at the Geneva-based MENA Rights Group, told Reuters. The organisation had “documented cases of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance targeting foreign nationals of Shia origin for years,” she said, but recent reports indicated an escalation. Middle East Eye
Michael Kugelman, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, said UAE-based Pakistani Shi’a appeared to have become a scapegoat for deteriorating ties between Abu Dhabi and Islamabad. “There is also a perception in the UAE that Pakistan is simply getting too close to Iran and becoming too sympathetic to it, especially as Pakistan jockeys to mediate in the war and tries to project itself as a neutral mediator,” he said. deccanherald
The Broader UAE–Pakistan Rupture
The deportations are one strand in a broader unravelling of ties between Abu Dhabi and Islamabad. As Pakistan emerged as a mediator between the United States and Iran, the UAE made a surprise request for Islamabad to immediately repay a debt of $3.5 billion. Saudi Arabia, which signed a mutual defence pact with Pakistan last year, stepped in with financial support. Observers said the UAE’s demand may have reflected Abu Dhabi’s growing frustration with Islamabad — particularly over what was seen as Pakistan’s muted response to Iranian missile and drone attacks on the Gulf. New Lines Magazine
Following the deportations, Etihad Airways abruptly terminated the employment of 15 Pakistani workers, giving them 48 hours to leave the country, the Kathmandu Post reported. alcircle
Economic Stakes for Pakistan
About 1.8 million Pakistanis live and work in the UAE, according to the Association of Overseas Pakistanis, accounting for more than $6 billion a year in remittances to Pakistan. After Iran, Pakistan has the world’s second-largest Shi’ite population, at around 40 million — roughly 17% of the country’s total. Middle East Eye
Any sustained reduction in the Pakistani workforce in the UAE would carry direct consequences for a Pakistani economy that has relied heavily on Gulf remittances throughout a prolonged financial crisis. The frozen savings of deported workers represent an additional and unresolved drain on households that took on debt to fund their time abroad.
What Happens Next
Human Rights Watch confirmed it is investigating the deportations. Pakistan’s embassy in Abu Dhabi has said it remains in contact with UAE authorities, but has not announced any formal diplomatic representations over the removal of Shi’ite workers specifically. Shi’ite community elders in Pakistan have said that public mourning rituals and religious gatherings in the UAE have come under increasing surveillance, with some worshippers detained and deported, suggesting the conditions driving the removals have not changed. Pakistan’s interior ministry has not indicated it plans to revisit its position that the deportations are routine and non-discriminatory. AL-MonitorTIMES OF ISLAMABAD
