World Cup 2022: Far from the glitz of Qatar a migrant worker’s family grieves
To provide a living for his family, Kashiram Belbase joined the thousands leaving Nepal to build Qatar’s infrastructure to host the World Cup.
“We needed to build a house, send children to school, and manage the family,” recalled his wife, Dhankala.
“We had no money to manage everything. That’s why he went.”
And where he died.
In a Nepalese village, a son and daughter are now without their father.
Part of the vast low-paid migrant workforce from the Indian subcontinent in Doha, the 32-year-old was helping to build the metro transport system when he was found dead.
A premature death put down to underlying causes by Qataris. Respiratory failure his wife fears was caused by working in gruelling conditions in the desert nation.
“When I heard about the heart attack,” she told Sky News, “I felt it might be possible as it is extremely hot there.”
The anguish is deepened by the unanswered questions about her husband’s death and the lack of significant compensation from Qatar – effectively just the pay he was owed.
The 32-year-old had been helping to build Doha’s metro transport system
“Had we still been together, for example, it would not have been difficult for me to fulfil our children’s needs,” Dhankala weeps in the family home, where her husband’s picture hangs on the green walls.
“I feel they should have looked after us since Qatar is a rich country. No one from there provided us any kind of support.
“They only bore the cost of transportation of the body to Kathmandu from there.”
The sense of frustration – at times anger – is why in the weeks before the World Cup starts, European football federations, including the English and Welsh, are lobbying for a Qatari compensation fund.
As a family grieves far from the glitz of Qatar, the hope is the world’s biggest stars use their status to make an impact beyond the pitch.
“As they come to play there, they should appeal for providing support to the family of those who lost their lives while building the infrastructure,” 33-year-old Dhankala says.
“I wish they could support us and make an appeal. They could take care for the family.”
In fierce heat, the final touches are being made to ensure Qatar is World Cup ready
Government officials were not made available to speak to Sky News during a week-long visit in Qatar, where the UN’s labour agency assesses progress in improving rights and conditions for workers.
“We do need to have stronger investigations, whether they’re health investigations or labour investigations, to determine whether work could have played a factor in the worker’s death,” Max Tunon, head of the International Labour Organisation’s Doha office, told Sky News.
Mr Tunon recognises Qatar has made progress raising standards as the country has expanded since winning the FIFA World Cup vote in 2010.
The tournament is leaving a legacy with the introduction of a minimum wage and efforts to dismantle the Kafala system that ties workers to their employers.
“There’s greater labour mobility, greater freedoms, greater empowerment for workers,” he said.
“But we also know that there are huge issues that still exist, the full implementation of the Kafala reforms, it’s still a challenge for us, wage protection abuses are still too common and the rights of domestic workers you know, there’s new legislation protecting them in terms of working time, that right to the day off, but often we see a degree of non-compliance in these areas.”
With the tournament to start shortly, the window is closing for football to push for change
With the tournament opening on 20 November, the window is shortening for football to push for changes and ensure their presence in Qatar does not contribute to more suffering by workers.
“We’ve been trying to facilitate the role that football associations can play in doing their due diligence, but also engaging with worker management committees in their hotels, and also with the other contractors that they engage with during the World Cup,” Mr Tunon said.
“They need to talk to workers, talk to the worker representatives in the hotels to find out, what are the actual challenges or the issues that they face. Perhaps there are challenges, perhaps their success stories.”
Qatar has made progress raising standards, but ‘huge issues’ remain
Progress that is often undermined by the lack of clarity of why so many workers like Mr Belbase have died so young to ensure this tiny nation can cope with the influx of hundreds of thousands of fans for 64 matches in 29 days.
In the fierce heat, the final arduous touches are being made to ensure Qatar is World Cup ready.
The hope will be Qatar’s advances in labour rights continue after FIFA has left and there is no more unnecessary suffering.
Russia has launched a “massive” drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian capital overnight, after Moscow itself was targeted.
Amid flailing peace talks, the Kremlin’s nightly attacks on Ukraine continued.
Ukraine war – follow the latest updates
A large-scale Russian attack through the night into Sunday injured at least 11 in Kyiv and killed three people in towns surrounding the capital.
There were attacks elsewhere as well, including drone strikes in Mykolaiv, where a residential building was hit.
An apartment building destroyed after a Russian attack in Mykolaiv. Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
‘Massive’ attack
In Kyiv, the city’s administration warned “the night will be difficult”, as people were urged to remain in shelters.
The city’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko described it as a “massive” attack.
He said: “Explosions in the city. Air defence forces are working. The capital is under attack by enemy UAVs. Do not neglect your safety! Stay in shelters!”
It came after at least 15 people were injured in attacks the night prior.
Russia claimed it also faced a Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday, and that it intercepted and destroyed around 100 of them near Moscow and across Russia’s central and southern regions.
A municipality worker cleans up after a Russian drone strike on Kyiv. Pic: Reuters
Russia ‘dragging out the war’
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine continued a prisoner exchange, marking a rare moment of cooperation in the war.
Amid the most recent attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his calls for sanctions on Russia.
Russia “fills each day with horror and murder” and is “simply dragging out the war”, he said.
A resident looks at an apartment building that was damaged in a Russian drone strike. Pic: Reuters
“All of this demands a response – a strong response from the United States, from Europe, and from everyone in the world who wants this war to end,” Mr Zelenskyy added.
Every day “gives new grounds for sanctions against Russia”, he said, and each day without pressure proves the “war will continue”.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is ready for “any form of diplomacy that delivers real results”.
Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Warning: This article contains details of child deaths
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.
Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.
Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.
In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.
The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.
“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”
Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack
Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.
Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.
Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.
Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.
Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
‘No political or military connections’
Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.
“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”
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Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies
He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”
Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
Read more:
Mum of emaciated baby in Gaza says ‘I don’t want to lose her’
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Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
World
UN’s Antonio Guterres condemns ‘teaspoon’ of aid allowed into Gaza after dozens die in airstrikes
The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.
He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.
A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’
Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.
The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.
Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.
Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.
Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.
A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza
The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.
The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.
The leaders of the UK, France and Canada are “on the wrong side of humanity and (…) history”, he said, after they threatened “concrete action” against Israel this week if it continues its “egregious” military operations in Gaza.
Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.
Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Read more on Sky News:
Shooting suspect ‘fired repeatedly’
Huge fire declared major incident
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The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
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