2500+ Indian migrant workers died in Qatar in last decade.The Guardian (one of the most trusted news publication) has revealed that more than 2,500 migrant workers from India have died in Qatar since the country was granted the right to host the World Cup ten years ago.The statistics, collated from official sources, indicate that an average of 2 migrant workers from India have died each week since the night in December 2010 when Qatar’s win was celebrated in the streets of Doha by jubilant crowds.Data from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka indicated 5,927 migrant worker fatalities between 2011 and 2020.
Also, read – Qatari Residents Are Instructed To Be Hospitable During FIFA World Cup
2500+ Indian migrant workers died in Qatar in last decade
The overall death toll is much greater, since these data do not include fatalities from other countries, notably Pakistan , Bangladesh and Kenya, who send huge numbers of workers to Qatar. Also excluded are deaths that happened in the latter months of 2020.
In the last decade, Qatar has undertaken an extraordinary construction spree, mostly in preparation for the 2022 World Cup. In addition to seven new stadiums, dozens of important projects, including a new airport, highways, public transportation systems, hotels, and a new city that will host the World Cup final, have been built or are now underway.
There have been 37 fatalities of workers from all nationalities directly connected to the building of World Cup stadiums, of which 34 have been classified as “non-work-related” by the event’s organising body. In certain instances, the word has been used to describe fatalities that have happened on the job, including a number of employees who have fallen and died on stadium building sites, prompting experts to dispute its usage.
The results highlight Qatar’s inability to safeguard its 2 million migrant labour or even examine the seemingly high fatality rate among the mostly youthful employees.
In 2014, the government of Qatar was advised by its own attorneys to conduct a study into the cardiac arrest fatalities of migrant workers and to modify the legislation to “permit autopsies… in all circumstances of unexpected or sudden death.” The government has taken no action.
Human Rights Watch Gulf researcher Hiba Zayadin said that Qatar continues to “drag its feet on this vital and urgent matter with obvious disdain for worker lives.” She said, “We have urged Qatar to revise its law on autopsies to mandate forensic examinations in all unexpected or inexplicable deaths and to introduce legislation mandating that all death certificates disclose a medically significant cause of death.”
