When the Climate and Migrant Crises Collide

As the world suffered through record heat waves in 2022, the Middle East saw extreme temperatures rarely witnessed in history. In fact, scientists say that the region overall is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet. Iraq, for one, set a record in August: The city of Basra reached the astonishing temperature of 125.24 degrees Fahrenheit. When it comes to countries utterly baking under the sun, alongside Iraq are Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and a few others.

These also happen to be the places where poor laborers from Asia have been heading to for years in droves, seeking work. Whether building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, or just generally working in construction in a place that pays them a living wage, the men who move to these countries are hoping the money they earn will provide on a better life for their families back home.

The wealthy in the Gulf can afford air-conditioning. But the foreign laborers, they must withstand the oppressive heat for endless hours at a time — and with that exposure comes damage to their bodies, one type of which is now being identified as the root of a life-threatening epidemic among Nepalese laborers. The laborers, who are often healthy young men when they set out to earn a living abroad — to make more than the dollar a day they may make in Nepal — are coming home with severe kidney damage that doctors are attributing to the extreme heat in the Middle Eastern host countries.

And it’s not just South Asians suffering this life-or-death health problem as the climate crisis accelerates. Young agricultural workers in Central America are experiencing high levels of kidney failure as are rice farmers in Sri Lankan fields or poorly ventilated factories in absurdly hot countries. Researchers say that these workers are falling ill with kidney disease because of extreme heat and genetic predisposition.

When working in such heat for prolonged periods, dehydration sets in. The lack of water is a burden on the body’s kidneys, and raises the risk of kidney stones and disease.

So why do poor workers continue to risk their lives by moving to countries where doing heavy labor may kill them? The answer is simple: When you have nothing and you can’t feed your family, you do whatever you can to make money. In particular, Nepalese workers have flocked to Gulf countries — and returned in great numbers to their country, sick, requiring dialysis. The World Bank estimates that the money sent home to Nepal by Nepalese laborers accounts for 22 percent of the country’s economy.

Doctors in Nepal told The Washington Post that they have been treating laborers who have returned from the Middle East for kidney disease at an unprecedented rate. The paper called it “an open secret.”

“It’s a sensitive issue,” Dinesh Neupane, a Johns Hopkins public health researcher, told the Post. Nepal is “a small country that relies on remittances, and the fear is if host countries respond negatively, many Nepalis will suffer,” he said. “But who will speak for the migrant workers?”