A FairSquare report published today has found that there is a critical absence of effective policies and processes to determine the cause of migrant worker deaths in Saudi Arabia, and concluded that the surge of construction associated with projects such as NEOM and the 2034 men’s World Cup will in all likelihood lead to thousands of unexplained deaths of low-paid foreign workers in the country.

A separate, independent investigation by Human Rights Watch, also released today, found that Saudi authorities have failed to adequately protect workers from preventable deaths, investigate workplace safety incidents, and ensure timely and adequate compensation for families.

“Hundreds of thousands of young men, many of whom have young families, are being pitched into a labour system that poses a serious risk to their lives, a medical system that doesn’t have the capacity to determine the cause of their deaths, and a political system that doesn’t appear to either protect them or find out how they died, let alone compensate the families shattered by Saudi Arabia’s negligence,” said FairSquare co-director James Lynch…

…FairSquare wrote to Samsung C&T on 20 March 2025 to inquire if they had initiated any investigation into the circumstances of Badri Bhujel’s death, but at the time of publication they have not responded….