Qatar Rejects Amnesty Report On ‘Unexplained’ Labourer Deaths

Qatar has rejected an Amnesty International report in which the rights group calls on the 2022 World Cup host to do more to investigate worker deaths, alleging that a string of labourer fatalities had gone unexplained.

In the report, published on Thursday, Amnesty accuses the Qatari authorities of failing to investigate the deaths of migrant workers, “despite evidence of links between premature deaths and unsafe working conditions”.

The report, In the Prime of their Lives (PDF), states that “Qatar routinely issues death certificates for migrant workers without conducting adequate investigations, instead attributing deaths to ‘natural causes’ or vaguely defined cardiac failures”.

These certifications rule out the possibility of compensation for bereaved families, according to Amnesty.

The rights group highlighted the risks posed to workers by Qatar’s extreme climate, especially when combined with excessive and physically strenuous working hours.

In its report, Amnesty reviewed 18 migrant workers’ death certificates issued by Qatar between 2017 and 2021. Fifteen provided no information about underlying causes, instead using terms such as “acute heart failure natural causes”, “heart failure unspecified” and “acute respiratory failure due to natural causes”, the rights group stated.

According to Amnesty’s analysis of Qatar’s deaths data, migrant worker deaths are going unexplained on a large scale.