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

On November 18, 2019, Latha Bollapally received a call from Qatar. Her husband had had a heart attack the night before in his room. Ten days after his death, the body arrived at the village. He worked abroad for 12 years. - He never said anything about his salary or about the working conditions or how he lived. When he died, we received one thousand Indian rupees as compensation, says Brother Rajesh. The family knows very little about his life in Qatar. - He lived alone, cooked all his food by himself and when some relatives wanted to make contact with him, he distanced himself from them.

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.

Eleven years ago, the family decided that the father would travel to Qatar to work. - We did not have money to be able to send children to school or to buy food or to pay the rent, says the widow Bishnu Kumari Makhim. The job as a driver was intense. He drove workers to and from their homes and construction sites. One afternoon, the brakes of the bus suddenly stopped working and the collision was inevitable. - When I called him on the morning of the accident day, he said he was not feeling well. When I called a few hours later, he did not answer, the widow says.

At the end of the workday, he fell down outside the construction site where he worked. And was sent to a local hospital where doctor declared him dead. “I could not believe it at first since he was in good health”, says the widow. Sumi Akter is now worried about school fees and the future life of her children: “Daily life is hard.”

Mijanuar Rahman had been working in Qatar as private driver for eight years and recently changed employer. The widow Mosa Arifa Laizu says that her husband was in good health while he was in Bangladesh and that there where no record of heart disease while he lived in his home country. – It it hard for us to believe that MIjan died of heart attack in Qatar, she said.

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.