Workers complain of eviction in Doha ahead of World Cup

DOHA: Asian and African workers on Friday accused Qatar of emptying apartment blocks housing thousands of foreigners in the centre of the capital Doha where visiting soccer fans will stay during the World Cup.

They said more than a dozen buildings had been evacuated and shut down by authorities, forcing the mainly Asian and African workers to seek what shelter they could _ including bedding down on the pavement outside one of their former homes.

The move comes less than four weeks before the Nov 20 start of the global soccer tournament which has drawn intense international scrutiny of Qatar’s treatment of foreign workers.

At one building which residents said housed 1,200 people in Doha’s Al Mansoura district, authorities told people on Wednesday night they had just two hours to leave.

Municipal officials returned around two hours later, forced everyone out and locked the doors to the building, they said. Some men had not been able to return in time to collect their belongings.

“We don’t have anywhere to go,” one man said the next day as he prepared to sleep out for a second night with 10 other men.

Nearby, five men were loading a mattress and a small fridge into the back of a pickup truck. They said they had found a room in Sumaysimah, about 40 kilometres north of Doha.

A Qatari government official said the evictions are unrelated to the World Cup and were designed “in line with ongoing comprehensive and long-term plans to reorganise areas of Doha”.

“All have since been rehoused in safe and appropriate accommodation,” the official said, adding that requests to vacate “would have been conducted with proper notice”.

Mohammed, a driver from Bangladesh, said he had lived in the same neighbourhood for 14 years until Wednesday, when the municipality told him he had 48 hours to leave the villa he shared with 38 other people.

He said labourers who built up the infrastructure for Qatar to host the World Cup were being pushed aside as the tournament approaches.

“Who made the stadiums? Who made the roads? Who made everything? Bengalis, Pakistanis. People like us. Now they are making us all go outside.”