"Rising heat, failing kidneys: Climate’s hidden toll on migrant workers"

Migrant workers return from Gulf countries with failed kidneys, victims of extreme temperatures, grueling labor, and a global system that leaves them unprotected...

One of them is 30-year-old Surendra Tamang, who, like many young Nepalese men, left his family to work in the Persian Gulf...

...For six years, he worked 12-hour shifts assembling scaffolding in relentless heat that could go as high as 50 degrees Celsius, or 122 degrees Fahrenheit. It was hard work, but he was young and strong. One day in 2023, he began feeling short of breath and noticed his hands swelling. He didn’t yet know that these were two common symptoms of end-stage kidney failure. After he was diagnosed in Qatar, his employer sent him back to Nepal. He hasn’t worked since...

...Buddhi Bahadur Kami and Kul Bahadur Dulal, whose lives were upended after years of working in Saudi Arabia’s relentless heat...Kami, who is 41, spent 11 years painting large diesel storage tanks…long hours in very hot conditions and were given water only every few hours despite sweating through thick uniforms and protective masks. Dulal, 46, drove trucks across the desert for a decade, living in a company camp with more than 200 other migrants. Both returned to Nepal with failed kidneys. “I had made a lot of money, but it’s all gone to paying for treatment”…