Climate Home spoke with migrant workers in the UAE, who face harsh conditions and a lack of transparency when risk turns deadly.

After four years working in construction in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Mohammed Amer, a 23-year-old migrant labourer from Pakistan decided to move to the oil and gas sector in search of better living and working conditions. Then his friend died.

Just days after Amer was offered the new job, a close friend working as a contractor for an oil and gas company died after getting lost in the desert. Other workers told Amer it was work-related, but officially, the man’s death was listed as natural causes.

Despite knowing the circumstances of his friend’s death, Amer still celebrated his new contract with the National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC), a UAE-based engineering and procurement company, by ordering sweets for his family back home in Lahore, Pakistan. It was a better paid job, Amer said, and “all work is risky here.”

UAE and its neighbor, Qatar, are in the midst of a major build out of infrastructure to increase gas production and exports, encouraged in part by Europe’s recent demand for alternatives to Russian gas. They will rely on migrant labour to get it done.

Read more at www.climatechangenews.com
Photo: www.climatechangenews.com, anonymous based in UAE