Twenty-two Indian nationals, including fourteen seafarers, have been killed in the ongoing West Asia conflict, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Wednesday, as New Delhi expressed deep concern over the deteriorating security situation in the region and the growing risks to Indian citizens and maritime workers in the Gulf.
MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal gave the figures at his regular media briefing in New Delhi. He said India remained in close touch with its community in the Gulf region for their safety and well-being, and confirmed that three Indians had lost their lives in Saudi Arabia since the conflict began.
"We are deeply concerned about the ongoing conflict in West Asia. We have lost 22 Indian nationals in the conflict, including 14 seafarers," Jaiswal said. "We remain in close touch with our community in the Gulf region for their safety and well-being. Three Indians have lost their lives in Saudi Arabia."
The conflict began in February this year, when the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran. The war, which began on February 28, has since expanded into a wider regional confrontation, drawing in Iran-backed groups, disrupting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and, more recently, bringing Yemen's Houthi group into direct attacks on Saudi Arabia.
India has consistently called for a solution through dialogue and diplomacy, while voicing concern over attacks on civilian infrastructure and economic assets.
The human cost for India has fallen heavily on seafarers. Fourteen of the twenty-two Indians killed were sailors working aboard ships in the region, many of them on foreign-flagged vessels that came under attack as the conflict disrupted commercial shipping.
Figures available in June showed that eight of the seafarers were killed in Oman, four in the United Arab Emirates, two in Kuwait and one each in Iran and Saudi Arabia, illustrating how widely the casualties were spread across the Gulf's maritime routes.
The most recent deaths in Saudi Arabia have drawn particular attention in New Delhi. On October 22, for the third time in two weeks, India condemned attacks on Saudi Arabia's civilian infrastructure after an Indian national was killed in an attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam. The Indian Embassy in Riyadh said an Indian national was among two people killed and two other Indians were among eight injured in the attack on the airport on Wednesday evening.
India also condemned a separate attack on the Shaybah oil field, in which another Indian was injured. The attacks on Saudi Arabia have increased sharply in the last couple of weeks, with the Houthis opening a new front from Yemen and targeting Saudi airports and energy installations.
The Houthi group, which is backed by Iran, has been seeking to topple Yemen's internationally recognised government, which Saudi Arabia supports, and the wider West Asia war has given that long-running Yemeni conflict a new and more dangerous dimension.
The strategic stakes extend well beyond the immediate casualties. The Houthis have attacked Saudi Arabia's East-West oil pipeline, a critical route for transporting crude to export terminals on the Red Sea. The pipeline has become particularly important since disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz complicated regional oil exports.
Attacks on either route threaten global energy supplies, commercial shipping and the safety of seafarers operating in some of the world's busiest maritime corridors.
India has also voiced serious concern over the threat to freedom of navigation through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, the narrow passage connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea.
Disruption to that strait, or to the Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Gulf, would affect not only oil supplies but also the container shipping on which global trade depends, and would put at risk the large numbers of Indian seafarers who crew vessels passing through these waters.
The Indian government says it is working closely with its missions and community organisations across the region to protect its citizens. Diplomatic posts in West Asia continue to monitor developments closely, and the Consulate General of India in Jeddah has issued a new travel advisory outlining enhanced flight options for Indian nationals, particularly Umrah pilgrims affected by flight disruptions in Saudi Arabia.
Indian missions are also coordinating with Saudi aviation authorities, commercial airlines and community groups to restore and expand connectivity to multiple Indian destinations.
Jaiswal said Indian embassies and consulates in Saudi Arabia were actively engaged with airlines and tour operators to streamline the repatriation of Indian pilgrims stuck in the kingdom amid the Houthi attacks.
He said the missions were rendering support in collaboration with community volunteers and were running twenty-four-hour control rooms in both Riyadh and Jeddah to assist Indian nationals, alongside regular advisories to keep them informed of the situation on the ground.
The MEA also emphasised New Delhi's solidarity with Riyadh's territorial sovereignty. Jaiswal said India reiterated that attacks on civilian and critical infrastructure were completely unacceptable and must cease immediately. That message reflects India's broader position: it has condemned attacks on Saudi civilian infrastructure repeatedly in recent weeks, while continuing to call for dialogue and diplomacy as the only durable route out of the conflict.
The figures announced on Wednesday cover eight months of conflict, from February to late October, and they underline how a war that began with strikes on Iran has spread across the region's shipping lanes, airports and energy infrastructure. The United States and Israel launched their attacks on Iran on February 28, killing its supreme leader and other senior officials, according to reports.
Tehran retaliated by targeting American bases across the Gulf and restricting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and vessels carrying several Indian seafarers came under attack in the months that followed.
There was a brief pause in the fighting in June, when the United States and Iran arrived at an interim agreement to stop the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz for commercial vessels, and held talks in Switzerland aimed at reaching a final peace deal within two months.
But on July 9, the American military launched fresh attacks on Iran hours after President Donald Trump said the ceasefire was over, following Tehran's alleged attacks on commercial ships transiting the strait. Iran retaliated by striking sites in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, and the conflict has continued to escalate since then, with the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia marking its latest expansion.
For the families of the twenty-two Indians killed, the statistics announced in New Delhi represent personal tragedies: sailors who went to sea to support families back home, workers in Gulf countries caught in attacks on airports and energy facilities, and pilgrims and residents whose daily lives have been disrupted by a war they did not choose.
The government's briefings rarely name individual victims, but the pattern of the casualties — overwhelmingly seafarers, spread across Oman, the Emirates, Kuwait, Iran and Saudi Arabia — tells its own story about where Indians work in the Gulf and how exposed those jobs have become.
India has one of the largest expatriate populations in the Gulf, with millions of citizens working in Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, and tens of thousands of Indian seafarers crewing ships worldwide. That scale is why a regional conflict, even one in which India is not a party, carries such a direct human cost for the country, and why the MEA's briefings on the safety of Indians abroad have become a regular feature of the war.
Looking ahead, Indian officials say the priority remains the safety and welfare of citizens in the region, alongside continued diplomatic efforts to push for de-escalation. The government has not announced any large-scale evacuation, but the control rooms, advisories and coordination with airlines suggest preparations are in place should the security situation worsen.
For now, the message from New Delhi is one of deep concern, close contact with the community, and a renewed call for dialogue before more lives are lost.
(Reporting based on The Indian Express and The New Indian Express.)