15JUN

India says Saudi attacks must stop

2 min read

12:23UTC

New Delhi called the strikes on Saudi airports and oil sites unacceptable after an Indian died at Dammam, as thousands of Umrah pilgrims wait for flights home.

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Key takeaway

India demanded an end to attacks on Saudi Arabia after an Indian died at Dammam airport.

India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) called the attacks on Saudi civilian and energy sites "unacceptable" on Thursday 22 October and said they "must cease immediately"⁠¹. An Indian national was one of the two people killed at Dammam's King Fahd International Airport the evening before. The Indian embassy counts two Indians injured at Dammam; the Saudi Energy Ministry says a third was hurt at the Shaybah oilfield.

MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said about 3,000 stranded Umrah pilgrims (Muslims on the minor pilgrimage to Mecca, made at any time of year) came home from Saudi Arabia in the past week. Asaduddin Owaisi, a member of parliament, says 4,000 are still stuck after IndiGo, Akasa Air and Air India cancelled flights⁠².

At sea, Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said the 21 Indian crew of the Kuwait-flagged tanker Al Dasma are "completely safe"⁠³. Indian seafarers have died in this war before: a torpedo killed an Indian crewman on the bulk carrier Cape Dao off Musandam in September.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Millions of Indian citizens live and work in Saudi Arabia, and many more travel there for religious pilgrimage. Recent attacks have hit Saudi airports and oil sites, and some Indians have been killed or hurt. India's government has condemned the attacks and is bringing pilgrims home, but opposition politicians say thousands are still stranded because airlines have cancelled flights.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

About 2.5 million Indians live and work in Saudi Arabia, the largest group of foreign workers in The Kingdom. Their wages and remittances make Gulf safety a domestic issue in India, especially in Kerala and Uttar Pradesh.

India also depends on both sides for energy and trade. It buys Saudi crude and needs Iran's Chabahar port for access to Afghanistan and Central Asia, so naming an aggressor carries a direct cost.

What could happen next?

Consequence
If cancellations continue, Delhi may have to charter flights or send military aircraft to bring pilgrims home.
Meaning
Condemning the attacks without naming an attacker keeps India's channel to Tehran open while it seeks safety for Indian crews at sea.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: In 1990, after Iraq invaded Kuwait, India evacuated more than 170,000 citizens, about 111,700 of them on 488 Air India and Indian Airlines flights from Amman over 59 days. It managed this while keeping relations with Baghdad, which controlled the exit routes.

Counter-parallel: In April 2015 Operation Raahat took about 4,600 Indians and 960 foreigners out of Yemen. India had to ask the Saudi-led coalition for pauses in air strikes to land at Sanaa, so its evacuation then depended on a party to the war.

Indian airlines lose revenue on the busy Gulf routes, and cancellations raise fares on the remaining flights through third countries. Remittances from Saudi Arabia support millions of Indian households, so a prolonged evacuation would reduce household income in Indian states that depend on Gulf work.

Consensus view: India's Ministry of External Affairs called the attacks on Saudi civilian and energy sites 'unacceptable' on 22 October and said they 'must cease immediately'. The statement names no attacker, so Delhi condemns the harm to its citizens without breaking with Tehran.

Counter-view: Asaduddin Owaisi, the opposition MP, puts the number still stranded at 4,000 after IndiGo, Akasa Air and Air India cancelled flights. His figure points to the weak link in Delhi's approach: it relies on commercial airlines rather than a state evacuation.

Key tension: Whether Delhi will run a state evacuation, which would admit that Saudi Arabia is unsafe, or keep relying on commercial flights.

First Reported In

Update #182 · Iran says it mined Hormuz and hit 7 ships

ETV Bharat· 22 Oct 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Attack on Dammam airport kills two

India condemned the attacks that killed and injured Indian nationals in Saudi Arabia.

Occurred 21 Oct 2026

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UKMTO confirms one tanker hit near Bukha

India's shipping minister reported on the Indian crew of the struck Al Dasma.

Occurred 21 Oct 2026

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This Event

India says Saudi attacks must stop

Indian citizens are now among the dead in Saudi Arabia and the crews under fire at sea, and Delhi has publicly demanded the attacks stop.

Different Perspectives

Cross-border power traders

The France-Germany day-ahead spread flipped from a EUR 17.20 German premium on 1 August to a EUR 4.15 French premium on 3 August, the same day French curtailment peaked. They cannot yet attribute the flip to curtailment alone, since a like-for-like overnight comparison shows French nuclear output rising while wind fell and demand returned on the weekday step.

EDF

River-cooling limits took 7.6 GW, 12 per cent of its fleet, offline on 3 August, the highest curtailment since the heatwave began, with an easing forecast to 4.3 GW on 4 August and 3 GW after. It manages the cut as a recurring seasonal constraint, expecting it to lift with river temperature, not repair.

Gasunie

TTF, the Dutch hub it operates, drifted to roughly EUR 55 to 58 per MWh across the window, staying inside its recent range through both the German spark reversal and the French curtailment. It reads a flat hub price as evidence that neither event this window carried enough weight to move the fuel leg on its own.

German gas-fired generators

Record German solar of 18,761 MW on 2 August pushed the clean spark spread to minus 18.48 EUR/MWh, a loss-making day, before it returned to plus 16.20 on 3 August. They now price dispatch against post-solar residual load rather than wind alone, since the sign flipped inside 48 hours on unchanged fuel and carbon costs.

European Commission (DG Energy)

Its implementing-measures register logged transposition notices from only Portugal and Slovakia against Wednesday's Article 94 deadline for Directive (EU) 2024/1788, with 25 states silent. It expects the register to fill only gradually, since filing routinely lags legislating and any infringement track against non-notifying states runs on a slower clock than the deadline itself.

Spain's LNG terminal operators

Spain's 9,145 GWh terminal inventory is the largest single stock in the EU LNG network, an option value that can reroute cargoes wherever the winter strip pays best rather than a cavern gas obligation tied to a fixed date. That flexibility matters more as Germany's cavern shortfall pushes more of the winter security question onto import infrastructure.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.