Qatar Claims 'Around 400-500' Migrant Workers Died While Working On World Cup Projects

According to sources, a top Qatari official involved in World Cup organizing estimated "between 400 and 500" construction worker fatalities. This estimate surpasses previous ones.

The host country's World Cup chief, Al-Thawadi, told British journalist Piers Morgan that "between 400 and 500" workers died while working for the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.

He emphasized that the statistic represents the overall number of deaths connected to World Cup activity in Qatar since the country won the bid in 2010, including the construction of hotels and other types of infrastructure.

Al-Thawadi said that over the past twelve years, there had been about forty deaths of migrant workers who were building World Cup stadiums.

During the interview, the British journalist asked al-Thawadi the following questions, some of which were put online by Morgan:

"What is the honest, realistic total do you think of migrant workers who died from – as a result of work they're doing for the World Cup in totality?"

"The estimate is around 400, between 400 and 500," al-Thawadi responds. "I don't have the exact number. That's something that's been discussed."

In the interview, Al-Thawadi mentioned these figures while talking about the work that had been done just on the stadiums before he cited the death toll being "between 400 and 500" for the entire infrastructure for the event.

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When asked how many migrant workers have died while working on the World Cup stadiums, Al-Thawadi said,

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"There were three work-related deaths and 37 non-work-related deaths."

This information was released when other nations accused Qatar of severe human rights abuses.

AP

This information also brought back the worries of human rights groups about what would happen to the migrant workers who built more than $200 billion of stadiums, metro lines, and other infrastructure for the first World Cup in the Middle East.

The country's employment practices have been overhauled since FIFA awarded the tournament to Qatar in 2010.?

AFP

These reforms include the elimination of the so-called kafala employment system, which bound workers to their employers, the implementation of a minimum monthly wage of 1,000 Qatari riyals ($275), and the requirement that workers who do not receive food and housing from their employers be supplied with food and housing allowances.

In addition, it has revised its policies regarding worker safety to avoid fatalities.

"One death is a death too many. Plain and simple," Al-Thawadi said in the interview.

On the other hand, Activists have asked Doha to do more, primarily to ensure that its employees get paid on time and are safe from employers who abuse their power.

"This is just the latest example of Qatar's inexcusable lack of transparency on the issues of workers' deaths," said Nicholas McGeehan of Fairsquare, a London-based group that advocates for migrant workers in the Middle East.?

"We need proper data, and thorough investigations, not vague figures announced through media interviews.?FIFA and Qatar still have many questions to answer, not least where, when, and how these men died and whether their families received compensation."

Al-Thawadi's comments startled Mustafa Qadri as well, the executive director of Equidem Research, a labor consultant that has published papers on the impact of the construction on migrant employees.

"For him now to come and say there are hundreds, it's shocking," he told The Associated Press. "They have no idea what's going on."

(With AFP inputs)

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