Qatar 2022 World Cup Death Toll Revealed, Conditions Remain Unsafe


The 2022 World Cup in Qatar is still over seven years away but it has so far been mired in controversy.

Not only has there been much dismay over the way that Qatar won the vote to hold the tournament, but the conditions that the workers constructing the stadiums have been forced to work under has also been the topic of much furor, too.

And despite the promise of Qatar to improve these conditions, the rate at which these employees are dying is still preposterously high. In fact, according to research that was conducted by the Guardian, Nepalese migrants have reportedly perished at a rate of one every 48 hours during 2014.

More alarmingly than that is the fact that this figure only includes the deaths of Nepalese individuals. This means that this doesn’t include the deaths of Sri Lankan, Indian, and Bangladeshi constructors.

This has led to predictions that if all of their deaths were included in the figures then it would probably mean that one person a day had died.

Those who have been working on Qatar’s stadiums have repeatedly been forced to work for long hours in temperatures over 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Guardian believes that 188 people have died between January and the middle of November in 2014. Nepalese officials have declared that it is 157 people. 67 of these were because of instant cardiac arrest, 8 of heart attacks, while 34 were the result of workplace accidents.

Nicholas McGeehan, a Middle Eastern researcher for Human Rights Watch, told the publication, “We know that people who work long hours in high temperatures are highly vulnerable to fatal heat strokes, so obviously these figures continue to cause alarm. It’s Qatar’s responsibility to determine if deaths are related to living and working conditions, but Qatar flatly rejected a DLA Piper recommendation to launch an immediate investigation into these deaths last year.”

The Qatari government had previously vowed to improve these conditions after the Guardian had exposed the death of dozens of migrant employees in 2013. This led to officials then preparing and conducting an investigation in to these deaths, which had been orchestrated by DLA Piper, an international law firm.

However, it has now been alleged that Qatar haven’t actually improved any of these conditions at all. In fact, human rights organizations have gone as far as to suggest that Qatar have been purposefully dragging their feet.

Before Qatar hosts the World Cup in 2022, it will be held in Russia in 2018.

[Image via the Guardian]

Share this article: Qatar 2022 World Cup Death Toll Revealed, Conditions Remain Unsafe
More from Inquisitr