400-500 Migrant Workers Died on World Cup Projects, says Qatari official

CTN NEWS –   According to the Qatari official in charge of organising the 2022 World Cup, “between 400 and 500” migrant labourers have perished while working on World Cup-related projects.

The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy’s secretary general, Hassan al-Thawadi, admitted as much in an interview, but said that an exact number of casualties was still “being negotiated.”

Thawadi said on the television programme Piers Morgan Uncensored, “The guess is approximately 400.” “In the 400 to 500 range. I am not certain of the exact figure; it is under discussion.

Every year, Health and Safety Improves

One death is too many; that much is obvious. However, the health and safety requirements on the sites are becoming better every year, at least on our World Cup grounds, which we are in charge of.

The labour unions are applauding the improvements made and the work done on World Cup grounds.

Thawadi’s remarks drew criticism after the interview, as Nicholas McGeehan of the advocacy organisation Fair Square noted: the latest example of Qatar’s deplorable lack of openness on the topic of worker fatalities.

Fifa and Qatar have concerns

Instead of hazy statistics released via media interviews, Our investigations need accurate data. Fifa and Qatar have concerns, Not least whether their families were compensated and where, when, and how they died.

The Supreme Committee has always stated that since the World Cup’s stadium construction got underway in 2014, there have only been three migrant labour fatalities at work and 37 non-work-related ones.

More than 6,500 migrant workers from five nations—India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka—died in Qatar between the beginning of 2011.

This country won the World Cup rights after many years

The years after the country won the right to host the World Cup, and 2020, according to research published in 2021 by The Guardian.

Activists have consistently asserted that the World Cup increased the number of migrant workers entering the nation, Despite the Guardian’s statistics showing total deaths from all causes and places.

A very large fraction of the migrant workers who have perished since 2011 were only in the nation because Qatar earned the right to host the World Cup,” McGeehan said at the time.

Despite not contesting the Guardian’s statistics, the Qatari government said that the death rate among these groups is within the anticipated range given the size and demography of the community.

In a speech to the European Council earlier this year, Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, used the official statistic of three stadia work-related World Cup fatalities.

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