Apartment buildings housing thousands of foreign employees in the same parts of the capital Doha where World Cup visitors will stay have been cleared out, according to evicted residents who spoke to Reuters. More than a dozen buildings, mostly occupied by Asian and African employees, had to be evacuated and shut down, forcing them to find any refuge they could, even camped out on the sidewalk outside one of their former houses. The action is being taken less than four weeks before the beginning of the world soccer championship on Nov. 20, which has drawn great worldwide scrutiny to Qatar’s handling of foreign workers and its stringent social policies.
Authorities gave inhabitants in one building in Doha’s Al Mansoura neighbourhood just two hours to evacuate on Wednesday at around 8 p.m. Residents claimed that building contained 1,200 people. Around 10.30 p.m., local officials allegedly returned, ordered everyone out, and closed the building’s doors. Some men were unable to make it back in time to get their possessions. One man told Reuters the following day as he prepared to spend a second night sleeping outside with about 10 other men, some of whom were shirtless in the Gulf Arab state’s autumnal heat and humidity, ‘We don’t have somewhere to go’.
He and the majority of other workers who talked with Reuters declined to provide their names or other identifying information out of concern for retaliation from the authorities or their employers. Five men were nearby packing a pickup truck’s rear with a mattress and a small refrigerator. They claimed to have located a room in Sumaysimah, which is located around 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Doha. The evictions, according to a representative of the Qatari government, are unrelated to the World Cup and were created ‘in line with ongoing comprehensive and long-term plans to reorganise sections of Doha’.
Approximately 85% of the people in Qatar are foreigners. Many persons who have been evicted work as drivers, day labourers, or have contracts with enterprises, but they are still in charge of finding lodging on their own. In Saudi Arabia, homes rented out to World Cup fans have resulted in the eviction of over 100 residents. A worker claimed that while foreign workers with families were unaffected, single guys were the target of the evictions. After occupants complained about being evicted, the electricity was turned off in some buildings.
The Qatari official said municipal authorities have been enforcing a 2010 Qatari law which prohibits ‘workers’ camps within family residential areas” – a designation encompassing most of central Doha – and gives them the power to move people out.Some of the evicted workers said they hoped to find places to live amid purpose-built workers’ accommodation in and around the industrial zone on Doha’s southwestern outskirts or in outlying cities, a long commute from their jobs.
The evictions ‘maintain Qatar’s glossy and opulent veneer without publicly admitting the cheap labour that makes it possible,’ said Vani Saraswathi, Director of Projects at Migrant-Rights.org, a group that advocates for migrant workers in the Middle East. ‘ At the very least, this is intentional ghettoization. However, evictions with little to no notice are brutal beyond belief’. Some employees claimed they had gone through multiple evictions. One said that he and about 400 other people were forced to switch buildings in Al Mansoura at the end of September before being abruptly relocated 11 days later. We had to move in a minute, he declared.
Mohammed, a driver from Bangladesh, claimed he had lived in the same neighbourhood for 14 years until the municipality gave him 48 hours to vacate the villa he shared with 38 other people on Wednesday. He claimed that as the World Cup draws near, those who constructed the infrastructure for Qatar to host it are being passed over. ‘who built the stadiums? Who constructed the roads? Who created everything? Pakistanis and Bengalis People like us. We are all being forced to go outside right now’.
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