Lorelai Jacinto had worked as a domestic helper in Riyadh for two and a half years before she flew home to the Philippines on September 19, increasingly worried that the conflict in the Middle East was making it unsafe to stay.
“When the conflict with Iran happened, I started feeling like it wasn’t safe there any more because I was right there in Riyadh myself, so the bombing, the missiles, were closer to us,” Jacinto told This Week in Asia.
“I got worried, I got scared that maybe I wouldn’t be able to come home any more,” added the 29-year-old, whose six-year-old son lives in the Philippines under her parents’ care.
While Jacinto made it home, more than 2 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) remain across the Middle East, including at least 800,000 in Saudi Arabia, where the widening regional conflict has heightened concerns about their safety. Many face a difficult choice of whether to stay on or return home and lose the income their families depend on.