Absurd Fabrication: "21,000 Construction Workers Dead in Saudi Arabia since 2017" - Apparent Misinformation
Claims are circulating on digital media that some 100,000 migrant construction workers have gone missing in Saudi Arabia since 2017. Another 21,000 of these foreign construction workers were alleged to be dead.
If this was true, approximately 8 to 12 workers died each day in the 7 years. And some 40 of these workers simply disappeared every single day.
Such statistics are rare, even in war zones.
More unusual than that, such a trend will continue unabated for seven straight years.
The overwhelming majority of the construction site workers building mega infrastructure for Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 program are from Asian countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, and India.
Were the families of these victims never informed?
What did their embassies ever do?
A series of unprecedented mega construction projects at the scale of Saudi Vision 2030 will require a human toll. Millions of workers are needed to complete such ambitious projects, which include the NEOM futuristic linear city, which will span a length of 170 kilometers, a width of 200 meters, and a height of 500 meters, protecting the infrastructure on all sides from the harsh desert conditions.
Apparently, the human effort required will be significant, and deaths are likely to occur. The Nepalese government has stated that the deaths of some 695 of their citizens who worked on these sites have not been accounted for[1]. This shows that deaths do occur, and there may be some structural issues.
The video documentary by ITV, which has since been limited on digital platforms, claimed that 21,000 foreign workers had died and 100,000 were missing but seems to be driven by hearsay and rumors rather than verifiable evidence.
However, to present such bold figures, similar to the death toll of soldiers in a battle zone, is highly problematic. It hints at recklessness and/or a possible malicious intention of defaming Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi authorities called these figures misinformation[2]In a country as big as Saudi Arabia, data collection is difficult. Therefore, there is a high likelihood that these figures are fabricated.
Saudi Arabia’s National Council for Occupational Safety & Health (NCOSH) reiterated that while deaths on mega projects like theirs can occur, they have taken tremendous care to reduce such possibilities. They cite figures that show that Saudi Arabia has one of the lowest construction work fatalities in the world – at 1.12 per 100,000 construction workers[3]This shows that protocols and standards are used to safeguard workers' lives on construction sites.
International pressures on Gulf countries seeking to expand their infrastructure are well-known. Journalists repeatedly accused Qatar of alleged fatal work conditions. A report on Qatar from 2014 in a British newspaper follows the same script as what is currently being used to blame Saudi Arabia for an unrealistically high number of migrant deaths.[4].
All the same, there is always room for improvement.
Qatar took note of the international accusations against them and abolished the Kafala system while raising the minimum wage for migrant construction workers.
In temporary conditions like construction projects, informal arrangements among vulnerable groups like migrant construction workers are usually the norm.
There is pervasive evidence that many intermediaries in the Middle East tend to profit from such migration arrangements. These range from migration facilitators to site supervisors who might want to cut corners to make a few Riyals along the way. Thus, safety could potentially be compromised.
And whenever safety standards are sacrificed for profits, the most vulnerable people are the ones who pay the price. Therefore, it follows that bottlenecks in the work structures on sites across Saudi Arabia might have contributed to some of these deaths. Such deaths are not likely to be reported formally because of the apparent crimes of evading laid-down safety procedures.
All in all, the Saudi government remains the authority, and they must ensure the risks to safety by intermediaries are studied closely and controlled. Otherwise, they will ultimately be liable for the actions of a few greedy intermediaries – many of them citizens of the countries with the most significant death tolls.
In conclusion, the figures presented by ITV are so broad that they are absurd. They look more like fabrications than verifiable facts of the death toll on sites across the kingdom. The Saudi Authorities have moved to reiterate their commitment to the safety of workers. However, this presents an opportunity for Saudi Arabia to examine the risks of informal clusters in their construction industry, which might be motivated or engage in malpractices that affect the safety of migrant workers. Saudi Arabia will, therefore, need to make reforms to guarantee the rights and safety of construction workers on sites. This should lead to high accountability for possible intermediaries who might be motivated to compromise safety standards.
[1] Theo Burman. "21,000 Killed Working on Saudi Megaprojects During Construction: Report" Newsweek. Published: October 31, 2024. Available at: https://www.newsweek.com/workers-killed-saudi-megaprojects-construction-1977972
[2] Tom Pashby. "Saudi Arabia calls reports of 21,000 construction worker deaths ‘misinformation’" The New Civil Engineer. Published: November 6, 2024. Available at: https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/saudi-arabia-calls-reports-of-21000-construction-worker-deaths-misinformation-06-11-2024/
[3] Al Arabiya English. "Saudi Arabia denies reports about fatal working conditions in the Kingdom" Published: November 1, 2024. Available at: https://english.alarabiya.net/News/saudi-arabia/2024/11/01/saudi-arabia-denies-reports-about-fatal-working-conditions-in-the-kingdom
[4] Owen Gibson. "The hundreds of migrant workers dying as a brand new Qatar is built" The Guardian. Published: May 14, 2014. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/14/migrant-workers-dying-qatar-world-cup
