Thousands of migrant workers have died since Qatar was awarded to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

The Bangladeshi migrant worker Abul Hashem died in Qatar due to “acute cardio respiratory failure” at a construction site neary Doha.  On the day of his death, he was working at a construction site in Al Rayyan in Doha and according to the family he was setting tiles. The other coworkers immediately called an ambulance which took Hashem to the hospital where he was declared dead. Abul Kalam Azad, the son of deceased migrant says that his father had no previous history of heart problems.

Mosharaf Hossen decided to migrate to Qatar to fulfill his dream of lifting his family out of poverty. For five years he worked as a mason at different construction sites but newer got payed on a regular basis. “The sudden and untimely death put us, a five-member family in dire hardship and debt bondage,” says Mosharaf’s widow Josna Begum. Her husband died on August 8, 2018 at the age of 38. The official cause of death was “cardiac chock” according to his death certificate.

In February 2020, Farzana Akhter lost her husband and gave birth to their first daughter. Instead of celebrating a new life, she had to go to the airport and claim Zobair Ahmed’s dead body along with $410 and a death certificate. He was 32 and had worked as a driver in Qatar for nine years. The official cause of death said “strangulation”. It was unclear if he had committed suicide or accidentally ended up hanging in his helmet strap. “I refuse to believe that he would have taken his own life,” the widow says. “I see no reason why.”

Sujan Miah from Bangladesh was 32 years old when he died in Qatar on September 24, 2020. The official death certificate states that he died of natural causes. But Sujan's brother tells Amnesty International that he was completely healthy when he left. In Qatar, he worked laying pipes in the desert. All his work was done outdoors in the heat and during the four days preceding his death it was 40 degrees in the shade. Sujan's siblings describe the loss as “inconceivable” to Amnesty staff who met the family in Bangladesh.

Narayan Prasad Parajuli and Durga Kumari Bhandari worked in Qatar. Married for 15 years. - Our life was good. Until one day my wife suddenly got a lightning headache, remembers Narayan Prasad Parajuli. At the hospital, the doctors assessed that she had a brain tumor. The treatment started immediately but she died after eight months. - I still have not told Nayan that his mother is dead. He still thinks she's in the hospital and he still texts her. Personally, I don’t think I will ever be happy again, says Narayan Prasad Parajuli.

On January 30, an air conditioning system exploded in the kitchen where Nuruddin worked. One month later, the family received his body from Qatar, where he had traveled four years earlier to work as a chef. His wife says that during the ten years she was married to Nuruddin, she almost never met him. - We got married over the phone when he worked in Dubai and we barely met a few days during our ten-year marriage, says Mosamamat Nazma Akter Beauty Chowdhury who is 26. Now she has to support the family alone. - My only wish now is for our two sons to be able to stay in school.