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

Manjur Kha Pathan from Nepal died in Qatar on February 9, 2021, at the age of 40 years. His death certificate issued states that the heart disease was “unspecified” and it does not provide information about the underlying causes. His brother Ahmed Hussain told Amnesty International that Manjur worked as a truck driver and that he was healthy. They often talked about his job, and he complained about long working days, the heat and that the air conditioning in the truck was often broken. But he never complained about his health. Because he died at home and not at work, the case is not covered by the compensation laws in Qatar.

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.

The body of Mohammad Russel Parvez was found in a trash bin in the Qatar few days before Christmas in 2020. He was 33 and an only son. Shirina Akhter Banu, his mother, received his body in the home village, Doulatpur, in western Bangladesh the following month. He was a construction worker, when he fell from a 10-story building, his mother says. After his death, the wife moved in with his parents. She was satisfied with the financial compensation from the company, but no money in the world can replace the loss of a human life, she says.

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.

Ghal Singh Rai worked as a cleaner in one of the camps where those who built Qatar's football stadiums lived. His family had paid $ 1,300 to a recruiting firm to get the job. But after just one week, he took his own life in October 2019. His colleagues in Qatar said he had hung himself from the ceiling fan. - There is a wound in his neck, but we have never received any further explanations. We have to believe what they tell us, says his father Saarki Bahadur Rai. The father often told the son not to worry. - I always told him to come home if he cannot live in Qatar. I told him that over and over again.

Zohorul’s death in Qatar couldn’t have happened at a worse time. The family was even before his death passing through economic hardship.  They had borrowed money from a local NGO, moneylenders and relatives to send Zohorul to Qatar to work as a cleaner. Rina Akter, elder sister, and Sharmin Akter, younger sister, of Zohorul claimed that their only brother did not have any previous health complications or diseases in Bangladesh.