Kenyan Stadium Guard's Death In Qatar Turns Focus On Migrant Workers

The 24-year-old Kenyan security guard, John Njue Kibue, had fallen from the 8th floor of the stadium while on duty

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Kenyan security guard John Njue Kibue, 24, fell from the 8th floor of a stadium in Qatar
New Delhi:

A security guard from Kenya who reportedly fell while on duty at Qatar's Lusail Stadium has died in hospital, CNN reported.

The 24-year-old Kenyan security guard, John Njue Kibue, had fallen from the 8th floor of the stadium while on duty.

"We don't have the money to get justice for him, but we want to know what happened," his sister Ann Wanjiru told CNN.

Ahead of the FIFA World Cup, several deaths of migrant workers in Qatar had raised concern.

One of the world's wealthiest countries, Qatar has been transformed since FIFA awarded the tournament in 2010 with a new metro, skyscrapers, highways, new universities, museums and a port built alongside seven new stadiums and one rebuilt.

British newspaper, The Guardian, set off a major storm with a report in February 2021 that 6,500 workers from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka died between 2011 and 2020. This was based on official figures from the countries.

Many other media have used this to say that 6,500 people died in World Cup stadiums, fuelling wild social media conspiracy theories.

With Qatar determined to pursue its modernisation, it faces pressure from the UN's International Labour Organisation, unions and foreign governments to improve its data collection to end the controversy.

The ILO, which has had an office in Doha since 2018, called the figures "misleading" and said they had been wrongly linked to World Cup sites without proper context.

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The government says the figure takes the deaths of all foreign workers over the decade "and attributes it to the World Cup. This is not true".

An ILO report said there were 50 deaths and 500 serious injuries among foreign workers in 2020.

The UN agency said the figures could be under-reported because of data weaknesses.

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