Fifty migrant workers died and more than half a thousand were seriously injured last year in Qatar, during the works to host the 2022 soccer World Cup, the International Labor Organization (ILO) reported on Friday.
The rich gas emirate is regularly condemned by international NGOs for the treatment reserved for the hundreds of thousands of workers from Asia in the big works for the World Cup.
According to the United Nations agency report, the majority of migrant workers who died in 2020 died in falls or traffic accidents, most in the workplace.
In addition, 506 immigrant workers were seriously injured in 2020 and another 37,600 suffered minor or moderate injuries.
The ILO, which encountered gaps in the data collected, had to rely on institutions that do not always classify the dead and injured at work in the same way. The data “is not collected in a systematic way,” said Max Tunon, head of the UN agency’s office in Qatar, in a statement.
The report calls for the creation of a “national platform” that brings together all the data. “We have to act urgently, because behind each figure there is a worker and his family,” he added.
“Another key recommendation is to better investigate causes of deaths that are not classified as work-related, but may be,” Tunon said.
Qatar welcomed the release of the report and noted that it reflected Qatar’s commitment to cooperate fully in relation to the rights of its workers.
“Qatar is studying the report’s recommendations and will continue to work with the ILO,” underlined a government spokesman.
In February, Doha flatly denied reports from the British daily The Guardian, which estimates the number of migrant workers killed in Qatar at more than 6,500 since 2010, but refuses to release the exact number of deaths.
