More than 6,500 migrant workers, employed on the immense construction sites for the facilities that will host the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, are reported to have died. This is the finding of an investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian, which analysed data from government sources in five countries of origin of the workers — namely India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Qatar transformed into a gigantic construction site for the football World Cup

Over the past 10 years, Qatar has launched an unprecedented construction programme, focused precisely on the sporting event taking place between November and December 2022. The Middle Eastern emirate plans to build seven new stadiums, around which dozens of facilities and infrastructure projects will be developed — including a new airport, roads and motorways, public transport systems, hotels and other accommodation.

To achieve this, there is suspicion that superhuman efforts were demanded of workers, and that insufficient attention may have been paid to safety. "The information obtained," the British newspaper explains, "indicates that on average twelve migrants from these five nations died at work every week, from December 2020 onwards." Government data record 5,927 deaths in the period 2011–2020. Added to this are a further 824 Pakistani nationals who lost their lives in Qatar between 2010 and 2020, according to information provided by the Asian nation's embassy in Qatar.

The Guardian notes, however, that "the total death toll is in reality significantly higher." This is because several countries of origin of large numbers of migrant workers were not taken into account — the Philippines and Kenya, for example.

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The strange "natural causes" of death among migrant workers

The British newspaper also cites the specific cases of several workers. Ghal Singh Rai, from Nepal, paid more than a thousand euros in fees to secure a cleaning job at a facility housing workers employed on the construction of the Education City World Cup Stadium. One week after his arrival, he took his own life.

Mohammad Shahid Miah, who had arrived from Bangladesh, was electrocuted in his flat after running water came into contact with electrical wiring. Madhu Bollapally, a 43-year-old Indian national, died of "natural causes", despite his family's insistence that he had been in excellent health. According to Qatari authorities, 80 per cent of those who come from India die precisely of "natural causes" — a designation that is suspected of concealing numerous cases of cardiac or respiratory failure.