For first time, Dubai Expo 2020 says 5 workers died on site
Source: AP
By ISABEL DEBRE
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Dubais Expo 2020 on Saturday acknowledged that five workers had been killed on site during construction of the massive worlds fair, revealing for the first time overall statistics for worker fatalities.
Expo previously said that its 200,000 laborers who built the site worked some 240 million hours in its construction. It had not offered any overall statistics previously on worker fatalities, injuries or coronavirus infections despite repeated requests from The Associated Press and other journalists.
The admission comes after the European Parliament last month urged nations not to take part in Expo, citing the United Arab Emirates inhumane practices against foreign workers that it said worsened during the pandemic. Ahead of Expo, businesses and construction companies are coercing workers into signing untranslated documents, confiscating their passports, exposing them to extreme working hours in unsafe weather conditions and providing them with unsanitary housing, the resolution said.
At a press conference a day after the events opening, Expo spokesperson Sconaid McGeachin said the information about fatalities was previously available to journalists and referred reporters to a press release about a monument honoring the laborers who built the site from scratch, which offered no additional details. She said authorities would offer more information about casualties at a later, unspecified time.
Men watch a display at the Saudi Arabia pavilion at Expo 2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell)
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-middle-east-dubai-8bdd015ee55c61e2c695ac31a2a28c3d
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)melm00se
(4,993 posts)That number is slightly lower than the number of workers who died on the job in the USA in 2019.
Dubai
5/200,000 = 0.0025%
USA (2019)
5,333/157,544,000 = 0.003%
Mosby
(16,318 posts)33,988 Indian migrant workers have died in the Gulf since 2014.
https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/india-34000-migrant-workers-have-died-in-the-gulf-since-2014-activists-criticise-lack-of-protections/