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A senior Qatari official assures for the first time that between 400 and 500 workers died in the World Cup construction sites

2022-11-29T15:57:29.907Z


The Government immediately corrected its official and reduced the number of workers who died in the organization to 40. Human rights groups criticize the treatment of migrant workers.


By Jon Gambrell -

The Associated Press

A senior Qatari official who participated in the organization of the World Cup recognized for the first time that the number of workers who died in the preparation of the tournament is around "400 to 500", a drastically higher number than previously recognized.

The revelation by Hassan al-Thawadi, secretary general of Qatar's Supreme Committee for Supply and Legacy, came during an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan.

Migrant workers in front of a stadium under construction for the World Cup in Qatar on December 20, 2019. Hassan Ammar / AP

Al Thawadi's words may revive criticism from human rights groups about the price paid in organizing the first World Cup in the Middle East by migrants who built stadiums, metro lines and new infrastructure needed for the competition, whose budget exceeds $200 billion. .

In the interview, of which Morgan published some fragments on the Internet, the British journalist asked him: “What is the total, honest and realistic number of migrant workers that you believe have died as a result of the work they do for the World Cup? ".

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"The estimate is around 400, between 400 and 500," Al-Thawadi replied, "I don't have the exact figure. It's something that has been discussed."

However, that information has not been publicly commented on by Qatari officials before.

According to the Qatari Supreme Committee, from 2014 to the end of 2021, 40 people died during the construction and remodeling of the stadiums.

Of these, 37 are considered by the authorities as non-work incidents, such as heart attacks, and only three are work incidents.

Another document separately includes the death of a worker due to the coronavirus in the midst of the pandemic.

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Al-Thawadi gave his figure when speaking specifically about the works carried out in the stadiums.

However, the Qatari government, through the Supreme Committee, corrected him in a statement, assuring that it was referring to "national statistics covering the period 2014-2020 of all work-related deaths (414) throughout the country in Qatar, covering all sectors and nationalities".

Since FIFA awarded the tournament to Qatar in 2010, the country has taken some steps to review labor practices.

For example, it has eliminated from its system the so-called

kafala

, a concept that tied workers to their employers, who had the possibility to decide if they could leave their jobs or even the country.

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Qatar has also adopted a monthly minimum wage of 1,000 Qatari riyals ($275) and requires food and accommodation allowances for workers who do not receive these benefits directly from their employers.

It has also updated worker safety standards to prevent deaths.

“One death is one death too many.

Plain and simple,” Al-Thawadi said in the interview.

Human rights activists have called on Doha to take more action in favor of the working class especially when it comes to ensuring that employees receive their salaries on time and are protected from abusive bosses.

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Al-Thawadi's comment also renews doubts about the veracity of reports, both by the government and private companies, about the injuries and deaths of workers in the Arab Gulf states, whose skyscrapers have been built by people from the south of Asia like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

“This is just the latest example of Qatar's inexcusable lack of transparency on worker fatalities,” 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 interviews," he added.

"FIFA and Qatar still have many questions to answer, including where, when and how these men died and whether their families received compensation," he stressed.

[On the eve of the World Cup, the president of FIFA accuses the West of “hypocrite” for criticizing Qatar]

Mustafa Qadri, director of Equidem Research, a consultancy that has published reports on the cost of construction for migrant workers, expressed surprise at Al-Thawadi's words.

"That now he comes to say that there are hundreds, it is shocking," he explained to The Associated Press information agency.

"They have no idea what's going on," he said.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2022-11-29

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