According to Reuters, thousands of workers, who worked for the construction of the World Cup stadiums in Qatar, were pushed out by the local authorities.
With less than a month to go before the World Cup, Qatar is accused of having unceremoniously fired thousands of immigrant workers. According to Reuterslocal authorities evacuated a dozen buildings in Doha where there were mainly Asians and Africans who worked on World Cup sites, to build stadiums and road infrastructure.
On a building in the Al-Mansoura district where 1,200 people lived, the occupants were warned at 8 p.m. one evening that they had two hours to leave the premises. Some couldn’t even get their belongings back. “We have nowhere to go”a man told Reuters the next day as he prepared to sleep a second night out with a dozen fellow misfortunes.
A worker said the deportations targeted single men, while foreign workers with families were not affected. And some had been there for a very long time. Mohammed, a driver from Bangladesh, says he lived in the same neighborhood for 14 years until last Wednesday when the Doha municipality told him he had 48 hours to leave the villa he shared with 38 others people.
Tourists will stay in these neighborhoods
Most of those evicted lived in neighborhoods that are meant to accommodate tourists who came to watch the World Cup. In these areas, there is only housing at inaccessible prices for these workers, since the prices vary between 200 and 400 euros per night, approximately.
This controversy follows the huge scandal denounced by the Guardian which revealed several years ago that 6,500 workers had died on the World Cup sites. On the side of the Qatari government, it is assured that the expulsions have no direct link with the imminence of the World Cup, and had been carried out “in accordance with the comprehensive and long-term plans underway to reorganize the neighborhoods of Doha”.
“All have since been relocated to safe and appropriate accommodation,” the official said, adding that evacuation requests “would have been made with proper notice”. The FIFA, for its part, did not wish to answer questions from Reuters.
