Qatar Admits 400-500 Migrant Workers Died In Lead Up To World Cup

 

Photo Credit: AFP Photo

 

According to a top official, up to 500 migrant workers have died as an outcome of the World Cup in Qatar.

 

Hassan Al-Thawadi, the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy’s Secretary General, was asked by Piers Morgan to estimate the number of migrant workers whose fatalities were “a result of” labor done in conjunction with the international football competition.

 

“The estimate is around 400, between 400 and 500,” he told Morgan, as seen in the interview excerpt below. “I don’t have the exact number. That’s something that’s being discussed.”

Al-Thawadi went on to state that “one death is a death too many, plain and simple,” though he also pointed to what he said were continued improvements on World Cup-associated work sites.

 

“The improvements that happened isn’t because of the World Cup,” he added. “These are improvements that we knew we had to do because of our own values.” Instead, Al-Thawadi said, the World Cup served as a “vehicle” and “accelerator” for progress in this area.

 

The international Human Rights Watch (HRW) organization is one of many organizations that have criticized World Cup preparations and other problems. For journalists entrusted with covering the Qatar World Cup, HRW released a 42-page guide this month. In it, HRW highlighted various issues of concern related to the incident, including “thousands of unexplained migrant worker deaths,” as the organization put it.