UAE deports Pakistani Shiites who return to lost jobs, frozen funds

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UAE deports Pakistani Shiites who return to lost jobs, frozen savings

May 25, 2026

DUBAI,— After being deported from the United Arab Emirates, over 100 Shi’ite Muslims originating from Pakistan’s rural Chakwal district have returned home, saying they were left jobless and without access to luggage or long-term savings accumulated overseas, according to interviews and documents reviewed by Reuters.

The deportees are part of what community leaders and activists describe as a broader wave of removals involving Pakistani Shi’ites during the Iran war. Human Rights Watch is examining the allegations there.

Reuters reviewed immigration papers, screenshots showing visa status changes and flight information linked to 103 Pakistanis who identified themselves as deported Shi’ites.

All those interviewed said they could not recover belongings or savings before being placed on flights with other Shi’ite detainees.

Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen, a Pakistani Shi’ite political organization, put together a database reviewed by Reuters showing that 7,500 Pakistani Shi’ites were deported from the UAE after Feb. 28, the date when the United States and Israel carried out strikes on Iran.

According to group spokesperson Mohsin Abidi, the real number is believed to be higher.

Representatives of Pakistan’s Shi’ite community said deportations intensified during the conflict.

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to answer questions from Reuters concerning the deportations.

Pakistan’s interior ministry said in a statement that no one had been deported because of sectarian identity and that deportations were connected to violations of UAE regulations.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said deportation figures had remained stable this year but did not provide details.

A senior Pakistani government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Islamabad was reviewing the matter after receiving thousands of deportees from the UAE, most of them Shi’ites.

The official said the government had not publicly raised the matter for diplomatic reasons.

Michael Page, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said reports involving deportations of Pakistani Shi’ite residents from the UAE were concerning and that the organization was investigating the allegations.

About 1.8 million Pakistanis live and work in the UAE, sending more than $6 billion annually in remittances to Pakistan, according to the Association of Overseas Pakistanis.

Pakistan has sought to mediate efforts linked to the Iran conflict.

Pakistan has the world’s second largest Shi’ite population after Iran, with about 40 million Shi’ites representing around 17% of the country’s population. The UAE and other Gulf Arab states are governed by Sunni rulers.

Falah Sayed, a human rights officer at the Geneva-based MENA Rights Group, said restrictions affecting Shi’ite Muslims in the UAE were longstanding.

She said the organization had documented arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances involving foreign nationals of Shi’ite origin for years.

In 2024, Ali Ahmed Naqvi and his spouse, Quratul Ain, moved to Dubai. Naqvi said his wife was deported on April 18 after being detained while attempting to change her employment visa as she changed positions.

Naqvi said he was detained while preparing to board a flight to Pakistan and taken to a UAE detention center where he encountered other Shi’ites facing deportation. He said he was later placed on a flight carrying 93 detainees, all identified as Shi’ites.

“No one told us why we were being deported,” Naqvi said.

In Kurram district, a Shi’ite region affected by years of sectarian violence, community leader Musarat Hussain Bangash said 1,500 people from the area had been deported from the UAE since the war began.

He said most had been supporting extended families.

Among them was Laiq Hussain, who said he spent 20 years working in Dubai, where he bought a cargo van and established a business.

“In just one day, or rather in minutes, everything was over,” Hussain said.

In Chakwal, a former Dubai Metro manager who said he had been deported after 16 years in the emirate gathered with neighbors who had returned from the UAE.

One construction worker said UAE officials questioned him about his salary and remittances before asking whether he funded Iran.

The 41-year-old requested anonymity because he hoped to seek employment in another Gulf country.

The former metro manager said police confiscated his phones, handcuffed him and detained him for nine days before taking him on a bus to the airport.

“In the blink of an eye, I was back to zero,” he sadi.

(With files from Reuters)