A migrant worker who was killed in an aerial attack on the United Arab Emirates on the first day of the Iran war would not have been outside if he had known the conflict had started, his son says.
Saleh Ahmed, 55, from Bangladesh, was delivering drinking water in the emirate of Ajman when he was struck by debris after an Iranian missile attack.
Speaking from Bangladesh, his son Abdul Haque told Sky News that Saleh was a hard-working man and the family’s sole breadwinner, who would have not risked his life had he known the US-Israeli war with Iran had started.
“My father went to deliver water,” Abdul said in tears. “That’s when an Iranian missile landed on him and his car.”
Ten minutes later, Saleh died at the scene, his son said.
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Saleh lived in the UAE as an expat for 25 years, sending under £500 per month in earnings to Bangladesh for his wife and four children.
His family says the attack took them all by surprise.
“No way, he wouldn’t have known,” Abdul said, when asked if his father was aware of the war.
“If he knew he wouldn’t go out like that. We are hungry people, we have nothing and our family is very big. For sure my father didn’t know about the war, or else he wouldn’t have gone outside.
“If I had known, God willing, I would not have let him go outside.”
‘You don’t get friends like my dad’
Five years ago, Abdul joined his father in Ajman to work alongside him at the water company.
“As a child, I’d only spend a month or two here and there with him. But for the last five-and-a-half years we were more like friends. Eating together and everything, we did it all together like friends,” he said.
“You don’t get friends like my dad anywhere in the world.”
Saleh’s life mirrors that of millions of South Asian migrant workers who live and work in the Middle East. Many have roles in construction, hospitality, transport and as domestic help.
With roots in the 1960s oil boom, today the migrant workforce is made up of workers from countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and constitutes a large percentage of the overall population. Their remittances support generations of family back home.
“At the beginning my father really struggled and did a lot of different work. He worked at hotels, he washed cars, cut grass, he did everything,” Abdul said.
“And for the last seven or eight years he had a good position at the water company. He did a good job, it was in the service of people, delivering drinking water to people.
“We never imagined this would suddenly happen.”
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Body cannot be flown home for burial
Saleh’s family live in a remote village in Sylhet, in northeastern Bangladesh. With the money he sent to them, they had begun building a house. The site remains incomplete, with a concrete foundation lying bare.
Abdul explains how his father did everything he could for the family to have their own home, right up until he died.
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Saleh was not only supporting his family, but Abdul explains his father would gift meat parcels at Eid to friends and neighbours, give money to charity, and donate funds to the local mosques. He last visited his family four months ago.
Airspace closures over the UAE mean Saleh’s body cannot be flown home for burial until commercial flights resume. Abdul says the delay in being next to his father and laying him to rest only prolongs the family’s sadness.
Bangladesh’s foreign ministry confirmed Saleh’s death on Monday. It said ensuring the safety and security of more than six million Bangladeshis living in the Middle East remains the government’s top priority.
Meanwhile, there are no plans to evacuate Bangladeshi migrant workers. The government has urged its citizens in the Middle East to “remain vigilant and strictly follow guidance issued by respective host governments”.
“I pray for everyone to come quickly to a resolution,” Abdul said, speaking about the US, Israel and Iran.
“I’m seeing videos of many people dying, and I don’t want someone else to die like my father died. I don’t want any other people to lose their parents like we lost our dad.”
