191 Nepalese died in a year readying Qatar for 2022 Cup

KATMANDU: Nearly 200 Nepali migrant workers died in Qatar last year, many of them from heart failure, officials said Monday, figures that highlight the grim plight of laborers in the Gulf nation. Tens of thousands of impoverished Nepalese head every year to Qatar, where a construction boom is gathering pace as it prepares to host the 2022 football World Cup. The Nepal Embassy in Doha said it registered 191 deaths last year compared with 169 the year before, with a Foreign Ministry official describing many of the deaths as “unnatural.” “In the year 2013, a total of 191 Nepali migrant workers died in Qatar,” Harikanta Paudel, a senior embassy official, told AFP. “The highest number of deaths occurred in July when 32 workers died,” Paudel said. Qatar is under heavy pressure over poor conditions for migrant laborers, particularly during the blisteringly hot summer. A Nepalese Foreign Ministry official said that a third of the deaths recorded were due to “unnatural” heart failure. “Young and healthy men in their twenties and thirties have died ... it is unnatural,” said official Subhanga Parajuli. “Cardiac arrest is followed by traffic accidents as another main cause of death. The third cause of death is injuries during work,” Parajuli said.   Arab News