Qatari official says 400-500 World Cup worker deaths

Hassan al-Thawadi, the secretary-general of Qatar's Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, gave those numbers to British journalist Piers Morgan in an interview posted to Twitter on Monday. Qatar’s Supreme Committee had previously reported only 40 worker deaths during preparations for the World Cup—37 of which it said were not related to work.

What has Qatar had to say about the comments? Qatar’s Supreme Committee said later that al-Thawadi had referenced all nationwide, work-related deaths between 2014-2020—414 total—in his comments to Morgan. Morgan’s question was: “What is the honest, realistic total, do you think, of migrant workers who died from—as a result of work they’re doing for the World Cup in totality?” to which al-Thawadi responded “The estimate is around 400, between 400 and 500.”

Dig deeper: Read A.S. Ibrahim’s column in WORLD Opinions about the mixed Islamic messages at the World Cup.