Bosses of Dubai Expo 2020 admit five workers died during construction
Expo previously said that the 200,000 labourers who built the site worked 240 million hours.
Organisers of Dubai’s Expo 2020 have acknowledged that five workers were killed on site during construction of the massive world’s fair.
Expo had previously said the 200,000 labourers who built the site worked 240 million hours, but had not offered any overall statistics on worker fatalities, injuries or coronavirus infections.
The admission came 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.
At a press conference a day after the event’s opening, Expo spokesperson Sconaid McGeachin said the information about deaths was previously available to journalists and referred reporters to a press release about a monument honouring the labourers 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.
“We have taken steps to ensure those have been addressed and very much intervened in cases on that,” she said.
The UAE, an oil-rich sheikhdom that relies on low-paid migrant labour from Africa, Asia and Arab countries to keep its economy humming, faces long-standing criticism from human rights groups for treating workers poorly.
Labourers in the UAE are barred from unionisation and have few protections, often working long hours for little pay and living in substandard conditions.
Dubai’s searing early autumn heat proved hazardous even for those visiting the site on its opening day on Friday, with some tourists fainting in the humid 40C weather.
