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The Al Wasl Dome is seen at sunset at Expo 2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Friday, Oct. 1, 2021. After eight years of planning and billions of dollars in spending, the Middle East’s first ever World Fair opened on Friday in Dubai, with hopes the months-long extravaganza draws both visitors and global attention to this desert-turned-dreamscape.
French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, right, and Reem Ebrahim Al-Hashimi, Minister of State and Managing Director for the Dubai World Expo 2020, watch the. Patroille de France aerobatic team flying over the French Pavilion at the Dubai Expo 2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Dubai’s Expo 2020 on Saturday acknowledged that five workers had been killed on site during construction of the massive world’s fair, revealing for the first time overall statistics for worker fatalities.
Expo previously said that its 200,000 laborers who built the site worked some 240 million hours in its construction. It had not offered any overall statistics previously on worker fatalities, injuries or coronavirus infections despite repeated requests from The Associated Press and other journalists.
The admission comes after the European Parliament last month urged nations not to take part in Expo, citing the United Arab Emirates’ “inhumane practices against foreign workers” that it said worsened during the pandemic. Ahead of Expo, businesses and construction companies are “coercing workers into signing untranslated documents, confiscating their passports, exposing them to extreme working hours in unsafe weather conditions and providing them with unsanitary housing,” the resolution said.
At a press conference a day after the event’s opening, Expo spokesperson Sconaid McGeachin claimed the information about fatalities was previously available but did not elaborate. The AP previously had repeatedly asked for the information and received no response from the Expo.
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