Mamata Tamang arrived before dawn for her early morning flight from Kathmandu, Nepal, to Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, on March 2, expecting to land by afternoon. Instead, by 10 a.m., she was still outside the international terminal, surrounded by crowds of confused passengers scrambling to find any sign of their flights.

Flights via Kuwait; Doha, Qatar; and Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah in the UAE that carry hundreds of workers to new jobs every day from Nepal have virtually disappeared since the United States and Israel began their war on Iran on Feb. 28.

Mamata Tamang arrived before dawn for her early morning flight from Kathmandu, Nepal, to Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, on March 2, expecting to land by afternoon. Instead, by 10 a.m., she was still outside the international terminal, surrounded by crowds of confused passengers scrambling to find any sign of their flights.

Flights via Kuwait; Doha, Qatar; and Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah in the UAE that carry hundreds of workers to new jobs every day from Nepal have virtually disappeared since the United States and Israel began their war on Iran on Feb. 28.

For the hundreds stranded outside Kathmandu’s airport almost every day, the war thousands of miles away was not their immediate concern. What worried them more was the possibility of arriving late or losing the jobs that they had spent months securing.

“Obviously, I’m scared,” said Tamang, 35, describing seeing videos of the war on Facebook. “But I’m not leaving by choice—it’s an obligation. I have to make money so my children can have a better future here.”

Like Tamang, some 2,300 Nepalis leave every day for employment, mostly to Gulf countries. It’s a familiar story across South Asia, as limited opportunities and low wages push tens of thousands of workers from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka toward what many workers call the “Gulf Dream.”

Of the 35 million foreign workers in the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—more than 20 million are from South Asia. Their labor has helped transform desert skylines, building skyscrapers, highways, and stadiums, representing the region’s rise over the decades. However, most migrant workers are trapped in physically demanding, low-paying jobs that are also the backbone of these countries’ economies. In a region where........

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