Those Who Remain: the families of the migrant workers killed in Saudi Arabia
Many migrant workers are dying in Saudi construction sites, but what happens to their families back home?
We still don't know exactly how many migrant workers died in Saudi Arabia, working for the 2034 World Cup, but the numbers could turn out to be tragically very high. The horrible human rights violations are a responsibility of Saudi authorities and FIFA, which is breaching its own HR regulations and principles, as a group of international lawyers recently said.
On May 15 this year, they filed a complaint to the global football organization, denouncing that the “decision to approve Saudi Arabia as the next host country now places FIFA, in accordance with its own policy, under an obligation to ensure that internationally recognised human rights are upheld in Saudi Arabia.” The letter was signed by lawyers Stefan Wehrenberg from Switzerland, Rodney Dixon from UK, and Mark Pieth, who was FIFA’s former anti-corruption adviser.
But fatal workplace accidents are just a part of this injustice. Migrant workers leave poor countries such as Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh to work in Saudi Arabia; they have first to repay the debt incurred to get the job, and then they started to send money back home to their families. This is a huge investment not just for their own life, but for the life of many more relatives, wives and children too. When these workers dies, what happen to their families? What happens to those who remain?
The hard struggle to receive compensation
On March 21, Pete Pattisson, Imran Mukhtar and Redwan Ahmed told on The Guardian the story of Muhammad Arshad, a Pakistani man in his mid-30s died working to the Aramco Stadium in Al Kohbar and considered the first death officially linked to the 2034 World Cup. Arshad left a wife and three sons aged between 2 and 7: “It will have a long-lasting impact on their lives. - said Muhammad Bashir, Arshad’s father - Arshad’s income was their only source of living.”
Technically, Saudi laws provide that, in case like this, families must receive the remaining salaries and benefits, and employers must also pay a compensation. But it's almost always not that simple. On May 15, 2025, Pattisson wrote on The Guardian that a Nepalese woman, Binita Das, - whose husband died working in Saudi Arabia in February 2024, leaving her with five daughters and a newborn son - received from the Gulf state only a bundle of documents. Das lives in one of the poorest regions of Nepal with her six children, in a house made of bamboo and mud, and their only source of income is the exhausting work in the fields she have to endure. “Now I’m the only person who can look after them. - she said - What if something happens to me?”.
The British journalist reports that there are a lot of stories like the one of Bitina Das. “The names change but a pattern appears to emerge: families are informed about the sudden death of a loved one by a colleague, details are often vague and contradictory, there is little or no contact from their employer, a long and often fruitless struggle for compensation follows and death certificates provide few clues as to what really happened.” Generally, migrant workers death are classified as “natural” by Saudi authorities: this means that no compensation have to be paid to families. It is a “natural” death even when someone collapses due to the harsh working conditions, or when he falls from a scaffolding.
Binita Das received some money only from her husband’s colleagues and from an insurance scheme in Nepal which the man had paid into. About a week after Muhammad Arshad’s death, his father said that he had not yet been contacted directly by the employer - the Belgian construction multinational Besix Group. Asa Devi Sah Teli, whose 41-years-old husband died last year after collapsing while at work on a construction site, received no compensation and now she struggles to survive with occasional farm work, earning 400 rupees a day (almost 4€). Anjali Kumari Rai’s husband died in Saudi Arabia in May 2024, killed in an explosion in a tank in which he was working: she was left with two sons of 2 and 4, and with no money for her cancer treatment.
What families can do
According to Saudi laws, Rai is eligible for a compensation, since dying in an explosion cannot be considered a “natural” death even in the Gulf. Yet, the 24-years-old Nepalese woman had not been contacted by the employer or the Saudi authorities. That’s the cruel reality behind the 2034 World Cup and Vision 2030 project: men abruptly dying while working abroad, and women and children left to slowly starve to death back home.
Saudi General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) provide a mandatory insurance for workers, based on a 2% salary contribution, and families of a deceased can get 84 months of salary with a maximum of 330,000 riyals (more than 77,000€). But, as has been said, it doesn't always work that way: the GOSI compensation does not cover “natural” deaths, so Saudi authorities may simply not investigate thoroughly the work-related incidents. Even when families have the right to get a compensation, they often face “significant challenges and delays”, as states a research by Human Rights Watch published on May 14, 2025.
Another chance are the local welfare programs, set up by the governments of the countries of origin, but these are often conditioned on valid labor permits. Usually, when a migrant worker’s permit expires, he is left without enough money to come back home, so he have to stay in Saudi Arabia, looking for another job and eventually finding one, but not always gaining a new labor approval. So, if he dies, his family cannot be eligible for any kind of compensation from the employer, or the Gulf authorities, or their local government and insurances.
It is not even easy to gain the body of the deceased back to his country of origin. Multiple witnesses told to HRW that employers made pressure to bury the bodies in Saudi Arabia, instead of repatriate them. Companies promise support if the family accept the burial in the Gulf state, but when a widow or a parent answer they want to bring home their beloved, the employer says they have to bear all the expenses. A Bangladeshi woman told to the NGO she was able to get her husband's body back thanks just to the help of her relatives and the husband’s colleagues, who lent her 5,000 riyals (1,176€).
Debts, family expenses and FIFA’s responsibilities
The deaths of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia have an heavy impact on their families, both on human and financial level. “Relatives struggled to obtain the most basic information about the deaths of their family members, in almost all of the cases relying on colleagues of the deceased men” underlines a report by FairSquare published on May 2025. The NGO interviewed the families of 17 Nepalese men aged between 23 and 57 who died in the Gulf country in 2023 and 2024: none of them received compensation in line with Saudi Arabia’s labour law, neither they were aware of this possibility.
The relatives of Arbind Kumar Sah were not even informed by the man’s employer that he was dead, and they were unaware of any compensation that may be due to them. The family is heavily in debt with local moneylenders: Bhikari, Arbind’s 65-year-old father, told FairSquare they are forcing him to sell his small house to repay the debt. The deceased salary was the only source of income of the family, and the house is their only property. “If I can’t pay it soon, I’ll be homeless” Bhikari said.
Debts are a recurring feature in these stories. Anjali Kumari Rai, the woman with two children and a cancer disease, have to repay 1 million rupees (more than 10,000€) to the moneylenders of her village, but she needs money for her medical treatments. Paying for debts and food is just a part of a family expenses: there are also the ones for the children education and, for those who have daughters in a patriarchal society like Nepal, for the wedding dowries.
Human rights organizations urged FIFA to make pressure on Saudi government to provide better working conditions in the country and compensation to the families of workers injured or killed in the construction sites. The answer send by FIFA to HRW on April 18, 2025, promises that these measures will be adopted soon, but lacks in providing details on how this will happen. In November 2024, FIFA already rejected the call to compensate the migrant workers harmed during to preparations of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, although the request had been put forward by his own committee.