The working conditions for the migrant workers who build arenas for the soccer World Cup in Qatar have been criticized for a long time, partly because they are forced to work long passes at temperatures up to 45 degrees and that hundreds of deaths have not been investigated.

Now comes new alarming information. German ARD has received photos, videos and reports from the Sanaya industrial area just outside Doha, where thousands of workers live in cramped conditions.

- We are seven in a small room that is completely dilapidated. We must not even go out to get fresh air. We have to leave the rooms in secret to make sure we get food, says a worker with whom ARD has talked.

- We are hungry and there is not enough food, says another.

According to the documentary "Captured in Qatar" (Gefangen in Qatar), the area is fenced off with no fence and no one enters or exits without a special permit. The entire area is said to have been quarantined.

- We are locked in and all the streets are blocked. The police ensure that no one leaves the area. I have to stay here otherwise I don't know what they are doing to me, says a worker in one of the clips sent to ARD.

Norwegian NRK has been in contact with the authorities in Qatar who do not share the picture painted in the German documentary.

- Food, water, mouth protection, gloves and hand disinfection are delivered daily to the area. About 1,000 cars deliver the goods every day, the government's communications department replies in an email.

Furthermore, they write that all workers who are ill receive free health care and that those who are quarantined receive wages just as usual.

According to German ARD, 500 VM workers had tested positive for the corona virus a few days ago.

ARCHIVE: Well-directed inspections in Qatar: "People get bad" (October 6, 2019):

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