India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc.
About 600 people die every year after hosting the World Cup
40~80% is’natural death’ No autopsy
Foreign workers at a construction site in Qatar. EPA Yonhap News
In Qatar, the host country of the 2022 World Cup, 6,700 migrant workers have died in the last 10 years. Qatar acquired the right to host the World Cup at the end of 2010, and the issue of massive deaths of migrant workers has been controversial since then, but has not taken any action. On the 22nd (local time), the UK reported that 6751 of workers from five South Asian countries, including India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, who migrated to Qatar, were killed as a result of their own investigation from December 2010 to the end of last year. The number of workers from India was the highest with 2711, followed by Nepal with 1641, Bangladesh with 1018, Pakistan with 824 and Sri Lanka with 557. Workers from other countries such as Kenya and the Philippines have not been investigated, and the actual death toll is estimated to be much higher. After hosting the World Cup at the end of 2010, Qatar built 7 new soccer fields and carried out dozens of large construction projects including airports, highways, hotels, and new cities. 2 million migrant workers from Asia and Africa were mobilized to build it. Qatar, with a population of about 2.9 million, has only 400,000 official citizens, and the rest are foreign residents. Qatar’s population has grown from 590,000 in 2000 to 2.30 million in 2015, and now has risen to 2.9 million. The massive death of migrant workers was controversial from an early age. In early 2014, the second year of hosting the World Cup, 900 and 300 workers from India and Nepal died, respectively, claiming “deprivation of the right to hold”.
The Qatar government said that deaths occurred in proportion to the size of migrant workers, and white-collar workers were among the dead. In a statement by a spokesman, the Qatar government said, “We are trying to prevent all deaths.” “We are providing first-class medical care to migrant workers, and the mortality rate is decreasing through system improvement.”
However, the Qatar government does not specifically record the deaths of workers and does not disclose or share them in a transparent manner. The country that sent workers is likewise passive about information disclosure.
Poorly published data shows that the deceased For 40 to 80%, the cause of death is recorded as’natural death’ due to cardiac arrest or respiratory disorder, but autopsy is rarely performed to determine the exact cause of death. Of those from India, 80% were natural deaths, workplace accidents 4%, road accidents 10%, and suicide 6%. Of those from Nepal, 48% were natural deaths, 9% of workplace accidents, and 16% of road accidents. Experts point out that most migrant workers are in their 20s to 50s, but these age workers do not have many natural deaths due to cardiac arrest. It is difficult to call this a natural death when he dies after working for 10 hours or more without any protective equipment at a work site exceeding 50 degrees Celsius in the middle of the day. International human rights groups have argued that autopsy should be performed in the case of natural deaths since 2014, but the Qatar government has not accepted this for 7 years. It is difficult to obtain consent from distant bereaved families, and he is reluctant to autopsy for religious reasons. “We asked Qatar authorities to amend the law so that all suspicious deaths, including sudden deaths, could be investigated,” said Khiva Jayadin, a researcher at the international human rights organization Human Light Watch. By Choi Hyun-jun, staff reporter [email protected]
Capture” alt=”Deaths of migrant workers in Qatar. Deaths of migrant workers in Qatar. <가디언> Capture