Qatar’s top World Cup official on Tuesday said that more than 400 migrant workers died in labor accidents in the country in the years leading up to the tournament.
Hassan al-Thawadi, secretary general of Qatari Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, gave the figure of 400 to 500 in a British television interview when asked how many workers had died “doing work for the World Cup.”
The organizing committee said his response referred to “national statistics covering the period of 2014-2020 for all work-related fatalities” in Qatar “covering all sectors and nationalities.”
Photo: Reuters
It said there were 414 worker deaths over the eight-year period.
Migrant workers make up more than 2.5 million of Qatar’s 2.9 million population and labor conditions have been strongly criticized — particularly on the huge construction projects that have transformed the tiny Gulf state in the past decade.
Qatar has never given precise figures for the number of deaths of foreign laborers, although it has denied claims by rights groups that thousands died.
Photo: AFP
Authorities have said that only 37 workers on World Cup projects have died — and only three in work-related accidents — and al-Thawadi repeated this figure in the interview.
“One death is a death too many. Plain and simple,” he said.
His comments brought new condemnation from rights groups.
“Over the last decade, thousands of workers have returned home in coffins, with no explanation given to their loved ones,” Amnesty International economic and social justice head Steve Cockburn said.
“Qatar’s extreme heat and grueling working conditions are likely to have contributed to hundreds of these deaths, but without full investigations the true scale of lives lost can never be known,” he said.
Under pressure from international unions, Qatar has undertaken reforms that have been praised.
It has dismantled its kafala labor system, which gave employers powerful rights over whether workers could leave their jobs or even the country.
It has also introduced a minimum wage of 1,000 riyals (US$266) and restricted hours in which workers can go out in extreme heat.
A series of ministers who have been through Qatar for the World Cup in the past few days, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have acknowledged the progress, but said that more must be done.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier