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Reports warn of worker deaths in Saudi's 2034 building boom
The Guardian
|May 15, 2025
Thousands of migrant workers are likely to die in Saudi Arabia as a result of a building boom fuelled by the 2034 men's World Cup and other major construction projects, human rights groups have warned.
The Gulf kingdom has seen a surge in demand for cheap migrant labour, with a significant increase in foreign workers since 2021, as it starts preparations for hosting the World Cup and drives forward projects including the futurist megacity Neom.
In two reports released yesterday, human rights groups said workers face severe risks to life and have criticised the lack of transparency surrounding the deaths of migrant workers. "Hundreds of thousands of young men... are being pitched into a labour system that poses a serious risk to their lives," said James Lynch, a co-director of FairSquare, which has written a report on the risks faced by workers.
"While Fifa praises Saudi Arabia to the rafters, children in places like Nepal grow up without their fathers and never even learn how they died."
This story is from the May 15, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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