Dozens of Nepali workers have died in recent weeks in Qatar and thousands more suffer from the miserable working and living conditions in the infrastructure factories that Qatar builds to host the 2022 football world championship.

Pete Pattisson started the chronicle “Qatar’s World Cup slaves” in the Guardian newspaper. The news has sparked a bit of noise in the British cradle that has been the cradle of football. Those of us who ate breakfast each morning between the works of St. Mamés Barria, the nervousness of some Real Sociedad player or the last Osasuna avalanche should pay him a little attention.

This summer, almost every day, a worker died in the Chantier of Catar, in the province of Barcelona. Many of them are young and officially with heart attacks. The journalist Pattisson has travelled to the Catarina capital of Doha to investigate whether the allegations of trade unionists around the world are truths. It has also been in Nepal, the cradle of the workers who wear down in the deserts of the Arabian Gulf. “Qatar: the migrant workers forced to work for no pay in World Cup host country” is the video prepared by the written chronicle.

In the document, available over the Internet, within 4 minutes plus 24 seconds, journalists arrive at a town in the Nepali district of Dang in the evening, chasing a white van. Once there, men will download the coffin between the tears and the downloads. The body of Ganesh Bishwakarma is veiled.

Ganesh went to Qatar at only 16 years old. Since he was not of the minimum age, he was given false papers to be able to emigrate. For him, as for many other children of labourers in Nepal, Qatar should be the sky, the modern Eldorado would support the family he had left in his country. After six weeks of confinement, the body has been taken home.

After the mother, the father has spoken to journalists by burning his lost son on the river bank over a bunch of firewood. “Our son has always been in good health, has not coughed. What made him sick? The climate? Anything else? These questions squeeze my heart, day and night.” And a little bit later: “I don’t know how I will be able to pay the debt I’ve incurred. Those who have given us will not forgive us the debt.”

The contractors go from town to village looking for young people abroad. They promise them remote work, but they ask for money to pay for the contract and travel expenses. The 16-year-old, Ganesh, had roles that said he was 20 years old and arranged for a broker trip, who was expecting employment in the cleaning section of Qatar, where his family contracted 150,000 rupees of debt. EUR 1.111 to be forcibly returned, with an interest of 36% per annum. Returning a debt of EUR 1.111? The worker who is engaged in the construction of Nepal earns 2-3 euros a day, while the one who is engaged in the hospitality...

4,000 workers could die

Every year, 400,000 of the 26.5 million people in Nepal are going to look for work away from the Himalayas. Of these, more than 100,000 will arrive in Qatar in sand.

In 1970, Catar, which had 111,133 inhabitants, had 1.9 million inhabitants in 2013. This reproduction is impossible without massive immigration. Only 15 per cent of the Qataris are indigenous and 13 per cent more of the Arab countries in the nearest area. All the others, far away. The population of India (24 per cent) outweighs the indigenous population, and also that of Nepal (14 per cent). It is followed by those from the Philippines, Bangladesh and others.

Oil, which is still abundant in the underground today, has allowed immigrants to build buildings and other infrastructures in the most modern cities of Qatar, which were just a dry desert. Among the development projects now being carried out by local economic forces, the star and the symbol are the World Cup facilities that will
be disputed in 2022: stadiums, hotels, roads...In the coming years, Catar will receive one million immigrants in the calculations of some of them. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has denounced that if the authorities do not track builders and their contractors during the preparations, they could reach 4,000 workers, according to ITUC.

Those who want to leave Nepal in search of work, fleeing poverty, ask very few questions and get huge debts. I have heard of what is going to be found in any country in the Gulf, rotten by the dollar. Roy C. Journalist Raphael spoke of “Slaves of Saudis: Terrorisation of foreign workers accounts for the miserable lives of Indian workers in Saudi Arabia. Net Gertu echoed in 2007 the harsh strike that Dubai then met: “‘Dubaibilonia’: striking workers in the futuristic city.” Since then, things have not improved, there are millions of people who want to survive and have no choice but to accept slavery...

The Guardian has found Doha and the workers who have not paid for months in the surroundings, while the elderly keep their pay. The withdrawal of passports by contractors is a common practice, as you cannot go out on the street without a passport or other identification card, let alone go to another company to apply for work, which is more illegal than aliens.

Mountaineers are subject to the toughest working conditions, in an environment where the thermometer exceeds 50°C. The journalist has gathered the testimonies of people who have been denied water and food.

In the West they have as their residence the non-allowed residences for animals. In a room to over a dozen people, dirty canteens with cockroaches and flies, kitchens that don't deserve that name. It is no wonder that many patients have become ill in these conditions.

The Guardian has interviewed 30 Nepali people who, without money or papers, find refugees at the Doha Embassy in Qatar and wait for them to return home. Following the scandal, the leaders of Catar have promised to intervene. But for the time being, Aidan McQwade, director of Anti-Slavery International, said that “the World Cup is not likely to be based on slave labor: it’s already happening.”

Between 2022, Qatar spends nine new football stadiums to build over $100 billion, a new airport with a special terminal for the Emir, a highway for Bahrain, a high-speed train, a metro network and 29 new hotels. The final of the World Cup will be held in the whole city of Lusail, in which it has been baptized.