Missiles over the Gulf, empty hearths in our homes

A war is being waged 3,000 kilometres from Dhaka. But for millions of Bangladeshi families, the explosion is happening inside their own homes — in kitchens where women now count how many meals they can skip, in villages where remittance money has stopped arriving, in the hollow silence of a mobile phone that no longer pings with a transfer.

The strait and the stove

Open on the Persian Gulf at night. Tracer fire arcs across the sky above the Strait of Hormuz, that narrow channel through which one-fifth of the world's oil must pass. Missiles streak towards targets in the United Arab Emirates, in Kuwait, in Bahrain.

Cut to a village in Sylhet. Dawn. A woman sits at the edge of a clay stove, its fire long cold. Her phone lies beside her, the screen dark. For 11 days, it has not pinged with the bKash alert, which means food, means school fees, means survival. Her husband works in Dubai. She has not heard from him in a week.

This is the transmission mechanism that never appears in the balance of payments data. A missile fired in the Persian Gulf can dim the lights in a Dhaka factory, delay a shipment to a European retailer, and empty the wallet of a woman in a Bangladeshi village — all with cruel efficiency.

The bodies that don't count

His name was Saleh Ahmed. He was 48 years old, from Baralekha in Moulvibazar. For years, he drove a water tanker in Ajman, United Arab Emirates — one of those jobs that sustain Gulf cities, the invisible labour that keeps everything running. 

He was among three people killed during Iran's retaliatory strikes following the US–Israel attacks on 28 February. The two others were Nepali and Pakistani expatriates.

In Bahrain, a Bangladeshi worker died at a shipyard near Manama when missile debris struck his workplace. Two others were injured. In Kuwait, four Bangladeshis were wounded in a drone attack at the airport; one later died in hospital.

The tally so far: four Bangladeshis killed, dozens more injured. But these numbers lie by omission. They count the dead, but not the mothers who will never see their sons again, not the children who will grow up with a photograph instead of a father, not the wives who must now do the arithmetic of survival alone.

The stranded — bureaucratic purgatory

Abdul Jalil has worked in Saudi Arabia for 23 years — twenty-three years of construction sites, labour camps, and remittances sent home. His return flight from Dhaka was scheduled for 28 February — the same day the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran. By 10:30 that night, his visa was due to expire the following day.

He is not alone. Since 28 February, at least 539 flights from Bangladesh to major Gulf destinations have been cancelled. Authorities estimate that more than 30,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers are now stranded in the country, unable to return to their jobs. Saudi Arabia alone employs about 67% of Bangladeshi migrant workers.

Md Imran Hossain, 43, from Faridganj in Chandpur, works in Qatar. He came home on 22 February for a 12-day holiday. He has rescheduled his flight three times. He is still in Bangladesh. "If I can't go back, it will severely affect my life and livelihood," he said.

Sheikh Mehedi Hasan from Narail spent 8 lakh taka to secure a job in Kuwait — Tk8 lakh, a sum that represents loans from relatives, mortgaged land, and promises made to moneylenders. His flight was cancelled on 3 March. His visa expired on 13 March. "If I can't join my work on time, it will cause a massive financial loss to me," he said.

Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE have extended visas by one month. Saudi Arabia and Oman have not yet confirmed.

Approximately 8,000 to 10,000 visas now stand unused. But what does "extension" mean when the loans keep accruing interest? When the moneylender in the village does not accept diplomatic assurances?

The women who hold empty wallets

Her name is not in the newspapers. She is the wife of a migrant worker in Saudi Arabia, living in a village in Comilla. Her husband left two years ago. Every month, the bKash alert arrived like clockwork. She managed the money, tracked what was owed, and decided which expenses could wait.

This is the hidden architecture of remittance economies. In remittance-dependent families, women manage daily finances. They track what comes in, what is owed, and what can wait. They negotiate with shopkeepers for short-term credit, decide which school fee gets paid this month and which gets deferred.

They reduce their own food intake before reducing anyone else's. Women are the shock absorbers of household economies, absorbing in silence because the alternative is admitting that things are worse than anyone wants to say.

For low-income households that spend more than half their income on food, even modest price increases lead to reduced consumption of protein-rich foods, vegetables, and dairy products. The nutritional consequences are troubling: reduced protein consumption and micronutrient deficiencies are likely to worsen, particularly among children.

Most women in remittance-dependent households have a mobile financial services account. Women now hold roughly 42% of all MFS accounts in Bangladesh. They have been counted in the "financial inclusion" metrics that policymakers celebrate. But when the wallet is empty, it is just an empty wallet. No savings product cushions the fall. No credit history provides access to a loan. No insurance covers the one thing that has just happened: the earner abroad has stopped earning.

Fewer than 1% of MFS agents are women. In conservative or rural areas, approaching a male agent to withdraw cash is not always straightforward. The infrastructure of inclusion has a gender gap at its very point of access.

In Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves, the mother pawns the family's bedsheets to retrieve her husband's bicycle — the tool he needs for survival. She does it quietly, without complaint. The women of rural Bangladesh are doing the same arithmetic now. They are reducing their own food intake before reducing anyone else's. This is consistently documented across household finance research in Bangladesh and South Asia.

The regional nightmare — South Asia's dependency

This is not just Bangladesh's crisis. The entire region is wired into the Gulf the way a patient is wired to a ventilator.

India receives $135 billion in remittances annually — 38% from the Gulf Cooperation Council economies. Pakistan receives $31.2 billion, with Saudi Arabia as the largest source. Sri Lanka recorded an all-time high of $8.076 billion in 2025, much of it from Kuwait and the UAE. Uganda has an estimated 300,000 registered migrant workers in Gulf states. About 500,000 Kenyans work in the Middle East.

"South Asia's external stability is deeply intertwined with West Asia through two structural lifelines: remittances and energy," writes an analyst in The Indian Express. The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly one-fifth of globally traded oil and LNG. Even perceived disruptions trigger volatility.

A $10 increase in crude oil prices can widen India's current account deficit by around 0.3% of GDP, while reducing growth by roughly 0.5% through higher inflation and import costs. Smaller economies with tighter fiscal margins face even greater vulnerability.

The energy trap — what a missile does to a light bulb

Follow the chain of transmission. A missile launches. Insurance premiums for ships in the Gulf tick upward. Freight rates rise. A tanker carrying Qatari LNG bound for Bangladesh delays its departure. That LNG flows into Bangladesh's power grid. Electricity generation costs rise.

Bangladesh meets about 65% of its total power supply through imported fuels and electricity. Petroleum imports alone exceeded Tk79,000 crore ($7.2 billion) in December 2025. With Brent crude above $114 per barrel, import costs have surged. Policymakers face stark choices: raise domestic fuel prices—risking inflation and unrest — or expand subsidies that strain fiscal space.

If fertiliser prices rise by 20–30%, rice production could fall by 8–10%. For rural households, this translates to lower yields and higher living expenses. Inflation was already at 9% in February 2026. 

For low-income households that spend more than half their income on food, even modest price increases lead to reduced consumption of protein-rich foods, vegetables, and dairy products. The nutritional consequences are troubling: reduced protein consumption and micronutrient deficiencies are likely to worsen, particularly among children.

Meanwhile, the ready-made garment sector — accounting for over 80% of export earnings — faces irregular gas supplies and rising energy costs. Export competitiveness erodes as freight costs rise and transit times lengthen.

The blueprints that gather dust

In Dhaka, there are conference rooms where studies are presented, task forces are formed, and recommendations are printed on glossy paper.

The prescriptions are not mysterious. Diversify energy sources — expand renewable energy, diversify LNG suppliers. Strengthen macroeconomic buffers — foreign exchange reserves, fiscal space. 

Build financial infrastructure that actually protects: savings products for remittance households, credit histories built through MFS data, insurance tied to migration and income disruption, and female agents in high-migration districts. Expand labour destinations beyond the Gulf — to Japan, Europe, and new markets.

India has set a target of 500 gigawatts of non-fossil fuel power capacity by 2030. Bangladesh and Pakistan are gradually increasing investments in solar and wind, while the Gulf burns.

But the gap between policy and practice in Bangladesh is not a crack; it is a chasm. Deep-rooted broker syndicates do not dissolve because crises arrive. Local disaster committees lack capacity. Reintegration plans for potentially thousands of returnees remain thin.

What travels through the strait

Return to the Strait of Hormuz. The tankers still move through narrow waters, though fewer now, more slowly, at greater cost. Insurance calculators run in London and Singapore, adding fractions of a per cent to freight rates — fractions that will multiply into millions of dollars of economic damage before the war ends.

Twenty per cent of the world's oil passes through this channel. So do the futures of millions of Bangladeshi families. A missile fired here can dim lights in Dhaka, delay shipments to European retailers, and empty wallets in remote villages — all with cruel efficiency.

The deeper failure is not that Bangladesh cannot stop this war. Of course it cannot. The deeper failure is that we have spent years celebrating the infrastructure of inclusion — the mobile wallets, the record remittance figures — without building the scaffolding that makes those tools useful under stress.

The SIM card and the wallet are there. The transaction data exists. The women hold the accounts. But when the money stops coming, the wallet is just an empty wallet. No savings product cushions the fall. No credit history provides a bridge. No insurance pays out.

The Strait of Hormuz will remain a chokepoint. The Gulf will remain unstable. The question is not whether Bangladesh can prevent the next crisis. The question is whether we will finally build the infrastructure — financial, economic, and human — that allows a woman in a village to withstand a shock rather than simply absorb it. Quietly. Invisibly. Alone.

The bottom line

In the villages of Sylhet, Comilla, Chandpur, and Narail, women are doing the arithmetic. They have been doing it quietly for years — stretching remittances, negotiating with shopkeepers, deferring their own needs so their children can eat. The war has made their maths impossible. Not because they cannot calculate, but because there is nothing left to calculate with.

The Strait of Hormuz carries one-fifth of the world's oil. It also carries the futures of millions of Bangladeshi families. That is the transmission mechanism that never appears in the balance of payments data. And that is why the question before Bangladesh is not whether we can stop this war, but whether we will finally build the infrastructure that allows a woman in a village to survive it.

The least this country owes her is the ability to do her arithmetic with something in her hands.

Zakir Kibria is a Bangladeshi writer, policy analyst and entrepreneur based in Kathmandu, Nepal. His email address is zk@krishikaaj.com .