Report reveals 34 Qatar World Cup stadium worker deaths in six years

Nine migrant labourers working on the stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar died in 2019, the “supreme committee” organising the event has announced, bringing the number of deaths on World Cup projects to 34, since construction began six years ago.

The latest figures, released in its annual report on workers’ welfare, include four workers who died of so-called natural causes and three who were killed in a company bus accident. There were no deaths caused by workplace accidents in 2019.
The supreme committee said it investigates each death to identify contributory factors and preventative measures. “Any loss of life on our programme is deeply saddening,” said Hassan Al Thawadi, the head of the supreme committee, in the report.

Qatari law and the supreme committee’s worker welfare standards do not require companies to pay compensation for non-work related deaths. However, in October the Guardian revealed that Qatar rarely carries out post-mortems when a migrant worker dies, making it difficult to accurately determine the cause of death and establish if it was non-work related. The Guardian further found that Qatar’s extreme summer heat is likely to be a significant factor in many worker deaths.

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