There are just days to go before the start of the World Cup in Qatar but the build up to the event has been blighted by safety concerns now a BBC investigation’s uncovered evidence that migrants working on infrastructure projects in the final months before the tournament have died or suffered abuse despite assurances from the Qatari government that the situation would improve our South Asia correspondent Rajini Vadyinathan sent this report the District of the newsha is in Nepal Southeast a remote and rural landscape here almost everyone relies on agriculture to make a living in the years since the World Cup was awarded to Qatar hundreds of thousands of young men have left this District to find work there anil’s uncle was one of those who went but he recently died in a workplace accident in Qatar even after studying things like computer science my uncle also went there as a Libra if he had known this could have happened he would never have gone Bill du mundle feels the same four years ago his son left for a job in kedar sending whatever he earned back to his family last month they received a call from one of his friends in the Gulf sidesh had been killed underground while working on an infrastructure project as Doha readies itself for the World Cup he got a call from our family friend in Qatar who told us had died while working again I haven’t received any compensation we just got the dead body and nothing else we contacted the company sidesh worked for but they didn’t respond it’s not just from here in Nepal across South Asia hundreds of thousands of people have left for work in Qatar World Cup infrastructure projects have created many more jobs for them to go to but have also led to more stories of poor working conditions and lacks safety measures qatar’s government says its efforts have led to significant improvements in standards and that it remains committed to the health safety and dignity of everyone working on its projects Satish villegasaram worked in Qatar in 2016 on a construction project linked to the World Cup but within weeks he was badly injured in a workplace accident now he’s unable to walk without a stick he says he’s yet to receive a single penny in compensation but was concerned about safety from day one we had to go up and down in the man lift I update I feared I would fall down while working at Such Great Heights or even die but danger in Japan the project sadish was working on told us they can’t comment on individual cases but that any incident that happens on their site is fully investigated but for many in South Asia who left for Qatar from these areas the opportunities the run-up to the World Cup offered turned into tragedy instead of Triumph Virginia album BBC News.
