3 yıl önce

Qatar sees high migrant death toll as it readies for World Cup

A Guardian report highlights Qatar's failure to protect its 2 million migrant workers or to look into the causes behind high death rates among workers.

Reuters

Labourers work at a construction site in Doha, June 18, 2012.

An analysis by The Guardian has concluded that over 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar since the Gulf nation won the bid to host the FIFA World Cup.

The analysis was compiled using data collected from government sources.

The Guardian says an average of 12 migrant workers have died each week since December 2010, when FIFA voted Qatar as the hosts of the 2022 World Cup.

The research highlights Qatar's failure to protect its 2 million migrant workers, or look into the cause of the high rate of death among the workers.

The Guardian stipulates that "while death records are not categorised by occupation or place of work, it is likely many workers who have died were employed on these World Cup infrastructure projects."

The official causes of death include multiple blunt injuries due to a fall from height; asphyxia due to hanging and undetermined cause of death due to decomposition.

However, the most common cause is natural deaths, mostly related to acute heart or respiratory failure.

Previous reports by The Guardian suggest that such identifications of death, which were often made without an autopsy, usually fail to provide a certain medical explanation for the cause of these deaths.

The Qatari government's lawyers in 2014 recommended an official investigation into the deaths of migrants from cardiac arrests as well as a law allowing for autopsies into such cases, the article said, neither of which were implemented.

Cheap labour from South Asia and South East Asia

Around 69 percent of deaths among Indian, Nepali and Bangladeshi workers are identified as "natural". The figure goes up to 80 percent among Indians.

Other major causes of deaths among workers from India, Nepal, and Bangladesh are: road accidents 12 percent, workplace accidents 7 percent and suicide 7 percent.

Pakistan’s embassy in Qatar also recorded 824 deaths of Pakistani workers, between 2010 and 2020.

The real tally of migrant workers who died in the time period is much higher, according to The Guardian, which reported the figures do not include workers from other countries like the Philippines and Kenya and does not include the deaths in the final months of 2020.

Qatar will host the FIFA World Cup events between November 21 and December 18, 2022, with the participation of 32 teams competing at eight stadiums.