BEIRUT, Lebanon — Qatar has locked down tens of thousands of migrant workers in a crowded neighborhood, raising fears it will become a coronavirus hotbed. Companies in Saudi Arabia have told foreign laborers to stay home — then stopped paying them. In Kuwait, an actress said on TV that migrants should be thrown out “into the desert.”

The oil-rich monarchies of the Persian Gulf have long relied on armies of low-paid migrant workers from Asia, Africa and elsewhere to do the heavy lifting in their economies, and have faced longstanding criticism from rights groups for treating those laborers poorly.

Now, the coronavirus pandemic has made matters worse, as migrants in Gulf States have found themselves locked down in cramped, unsanitary dorms, deprived of income and unable to return home because of travel restrictions.

Some are running out of food and money and fear they have no place to turn in societies that often treat them like an expendable underclass.