Friday, January 24, 2014

Qatar World Cup: 185 Nepalese died in 2013 – official records...

The extent of the risks faced by migrant construction workers building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar has been laid bare by official documents revealing that 185 Nepalese men died last year alone.

The 2013 death toll, which is expected to rise as new cases come to light, is likely to spark fresh concern over the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar and increase the pressure on Fifa to force meaningful change. According to the documents the total number of verified deaths among workers from Nepal – just one of several countries that supply hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to the gas-rich state – is now at least 382 in two years alone. At least 36 of those deaths were registered in the weeks following the global outcry after the Guardian's original revelations in September.

The revelations forced Fifa's president, Sepp Blatter, to promise that football would not turn a blind eye to the issue following a stormy executive committee meeting. Qatar's ministry of labour hired law firm DLA Piper to conduct an urgent review and Hassan al-Thawadi, chief executive of the World Cup organising committee, said the findings would be treated with the utmost seriousness, vowing that the tournament would not be built "on the blood of innocents". The DLA Piper report is expected to be published in the coming weeks.

The Nepalese make up about a sixth of Qatar's 2 million-strong population of migrant workers. Verified figures for the 2013 death rates among those from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and elsewhere have yet to emerge. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. ‘Modern slavery’: Intl delegation decries migrant rights abuses in Qatar...
  2. The Nepalis dying on Qatar's World Cup building sites...
  3. Trapped & Terrified: Workers' misery 'turns World Cup in Qatar into shame'
  4. Journalists detained after filming World Cup labor horrors in Qatar...
  5. The death mill: Qatar and the World Cup...
  6. Appalling migrant worker conditions in Qatar...
  7. Qatar World Cup 2022: 70 Nepalese workers die on building sites...

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