Human Rights Watch
14 May 2025

(Beirut) - Scores of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia die in gruesome yet avoidable workplace-related accidents, including falling from buildings, electrocution, and even decapitation, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities have failed to adequately protect workers from preventable deaths, investigate workplace safety incidents, and ensure timely and adequate compensation for families, including through mandatory life insurance policies and survivors' benefits. A separate, independent investigation by Fairsquare, also released today, highlights a serious lack of effective Saudi government policies and processes to determine the cause of migrant worker deaths. 

The risks of occupational deaths and injuries are further increasing as the Saudi government ramps up construction work for the 2034 World Cup as well as other "giga-projects." Families said that Saudi-based employers and authorities have given their families very little information on the circumstances of their relatives' deaths, some employers refused to cover repatriation costs, and some even pressed families to bury their relatives in Saudi Arabia, offering financial incentives to do so. Companies also often sought to withhold returning deceased migrant workers' belongings and the outstanding pay owed to them.

"The gruesome workplace accidents killing migrant workers in Saudi Arabia should be a huge red flag for businesses, football fans, and sports associations seeking to partner with FIFA on the 2034 Men's World Cup and other Saudi 'giga-projects'," said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Given that Saudi authorities are failing to adequately ensure basic safety protections and social security for migrant workers, local and international companies face a larger responsibility to ensure that serious rights violations are not occurring throughout their business operations in Saudi Arabia."

Human Rights Watch interviewed families of 31 deceased migrant workers from Bangladesh, India, and Nepal who died between the ages of 23 and 52 in Saudi Arabia, 2 social workers based in origin countries who provided repatriation support to the families, and 3 current migrant workers who were witnesses to their colleagues' deaths. Researchers also reviewed, where available, deceased workers' "No Objection Certificates," a mandatory document issued by origin country embassies before allowing repatriation of a migrant worker's body, death certificates, and other relevant official documents.

In line with a body of research on how many migrant worker deaths in Saudi Arabia are erroneously classified as "natural" and neither investigated nor compensated, Human Rights Watch found that even work-related death cases categorized as such in a migrant worker's death certificate are sometimes not compensated as they should be according to Saudi law and international labor standards. In migrant death cases that are compensated, the process is long and burdensome.

The construction sector is most prone to work-related accidents, according to official records of Saudi Arabia's General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI). The figures show that the top three workplace injuries are from "inanimate mechanical forces," falls, and traffic accidents, with migrant workers disproportionately affected.

Saudi laws require employers with 50 or more workers to implement a health and safety policy, conduct training, assess workplace risks, and provide necessary protective gear and first aid. The National Council of Occupational Safety and Health has said that the Human Resources and Social Development Ministry conducts regular inspections, compliance checks, and investigations of workplace incidents in coordination with stakeholders, and that violations are to be addressed through legal action or penalties as specified by labor regulations.

But Human Rights Watch found that workers across employment sectors and geographic regions in Saudi Arabia continue to face widespread labor abuses and occupational dangers at their work sites. While "diseases caused by exposure to extreme temperatures" are included in its approved list of occupational diseases, heat-related protections and related investigations, including of extreme heat-related deaths, remain grossly inadequate.

FIFA, the international football organization, has awarded the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia without proper human rights due diligence, guarantees of effective worker protection requirements, including from extreme heat, or ensuring social security to workers, including survivor's benefits and other compensation, such as mandatory life insurance. FIFA is knowingly risking yet another tournament that will unnecessarily come at a grave human cost, Human Rights Watch said.

Saudi authorities, FIFA, and other employers should ensure that all migrant worker deaths, regardless of perceived cause, time, and place are properly investigated and that families of deceased workers are treated with dignity and receive fair and timely compensation, Human Rights Watch said.

FIFA wrote in its response to Human Rights Watch that it plans to establish a workers' welfare system dedicated to mandatory standards and enforcement mechanisms for World Cup-related construction and service delivery in Saudi Arabia, without providing details on concrete measures to prevent, investigate, and compensate migrant worker deaths such as risk-based heat protection measures or life insurance. Saudi authorities did not respond to a March 25 Human Rights Watch letter on questions regarding migrant worker protections. Human Rights Watch has previously documented that Qatar, which hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup, had encouraged its contractors to purchase private life insurance for their employees since 2019. But in 2022, Human Rights Watch found that only 23 contractors had purchased life insurance policies for their workers. One contractor said that it cost them less than US$14 per worker per year for a benefit of $20,599 for family members when deaths were not classified as work-related and thus did not qualify for compensation.

"FIFA, which claims to be an impetus for positive labor reforms in World Cup host countries, should learn from the human rights disasters of past tournaments and urgently demand effective prevention, investigation, and compensation mechanisms for migrant worker deaths and injuries," Page said.

For detailed findings, please see below.

Researchers collected information about migrant workers' deaths from Indian, Bangladeshi, and Nepali government sources. Across nationalities the large majority of deaths of workers were attributed to "natural causes," which accounted for 74 percent of 1,420 Indian migrant worker deaths recorded just at the Indian embassy in Riyadh in 2023; 80 percent of 887 Bangladeshi deaths during the first 6 months of 2024, and 68 percent of 870 Nepali migrant worker deaths from 2019 to 2022.

Five of the nine cases Human Rights Watch documented of deaths that official documents classify as nonwork related, including by "natural causes," involved workers who collapsed at their workplace and later died, their families said. Witnesses to two worker deaths told families that their coworkers died from workplace accidents; one was an electrocution and the second was an elevator accident. Witnesses also shared with two families of deceased workers that two migrant workers died in their sleep. These findings raise concerns that workplace accidents in Saudi Arabia are under-recorded, misclassified, and/or inadequately investigated.

Moreover, the "No Objection Certificate" for the death of a Bangladeshi worker due to "electrocution" marked the possibility of compensation as "no," with the reason as "not available," while for two other cases of formally certified work accidents, the possibility of receiving compensation was marked as "depends on police report."

Employers also violated or sought to evade their obligation under Saudi law that requires employers to bear the costs of repatriation of the remains unless covered by GOSI. The family members of nine deceased Bangladeshi workers said employers had proposed to bury them in Saudi Arabia, offering lump sum payments or coverage of monthly expenses like children's education. Despite their dire economic conditions, eight families said they had refused these offers while six paid the repatriation costs themselves. In one case, the wife of a Nepali worker said that her husband was buried in Saudi Arabia without the family's consent. None of them have yet received compensation.

The son of a Bangladeshi man who died of electric shock said that his father's employer conditioned compensation on local burial. The family rejected this and had to pay more than 500,000 Bangladeshi Taka (approximately US$4,134) to repatriate the body, which they financed through loans. The family received TK335,000 (US$2,770) in compensation from the Bangladeshi government. "We had more debt than compensation," the son said.

Eligible migrant worker families struggle to navigate accessing their Saudi government social security benefits, even with the help of their embassy or consulate. Origin country embassy websites say that getting compensation is extremely lengthy, cumbersome, and can take years. The widow of a deceased worker said it took 10 years to get what was owed to her: "My sons are 11 and 13 years old. When my husband died, they were 11 months and 2 years old. If we had received compensation right after his death, it would have provided so much relief."

In another case, it took almost 15 years for the family of a deceased migrant to access their GOSI benefits. His brother told Human Rights Watch: "The compensation should have come sooner. It would have offered some consolation to my grieving parents and eased the pressure of loans. They passed away six years after my brother's death."

The failure to acknowledge workplace deaths and ensure timely social security for surviving family members can further entrench or lead to poverty and multi-generational harm, including pressure to take children out of school and send them to work. A widow of a Bangladeshi migrant worker said, "To make ends meet, I have put my 14-year-old son to work, and the little money he earns is used for our daily expenses."

Some witnesses said that employers required them to resume work after witnessing coworkers' deaths in work-related accidents. A worker described the dizziness he felt when he removed his friend's corpse after being killed in a machinery accident. He resumed work the next day with no access to bereavement time off or social and mental health support.

Another said that supervisors questioned why he and his colleagues had paused their work after witnessing their friend's death. They were forced to resume working the same day. "It is difficult in a foreign land," he said. "We did not dare to speak up about this issue and stayed silent in fear."

A widow of a 48-year-old Bangladeshi man who worked in construction in Saudi Arabia for over two decades said:

He died after falling from the fifth floor of a building that was under construction. His colleagues present at the site informed me that the place where he fell was the elevator landing area, where garbage and iron pieces had been dumped. At that time, he was doing shuttering work when his safety belt came off, causing him to fall.... As there were many heavy and hard objects there, he got injured in various parts of his head and body. He lost consciousness but was alive. The Saudi police arrived very quickly and rescued him from the accident site and took him to a nearby hospital. After first aid, he was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and died two hours later. I used to talk to him several times a day. Like every day, on the day he died, he called me after lunch, and that was our last conversation.

The widow of a 36-year-old Bangladeshi migrant worker who worked in construction in Saudi Arabia for over eight years said:

A relative also worked and lived with him at the same company. On the day of the accident, he was present at the worksite and informed us about my husband's passing. He told me, "We carry heavy blocks at work, and a large quantity of blocks were amassed in the construction site. When brother [my husband] was passing by that place, a bulk of blocks suddenly fell on him. As there were quite a few blocks, we could not rescue him with our bare hands. A crane was brought to remove those blocks from the body, but it was too late. Brother [my husband] had already stopped breathing. His body was smashed by the weight of the heavy blocks."

The widow of a 33-year-old Bangladeshi migrant worker who had been in Saudi Arabia for just seven months said:

A few of my relatives live in Saudi Arabia for work. They heard that my husband fell from the third floor of a construction building's window which was about to be demolished for reconstruction.... My husband was on the third floor hammering the wall to break it when he fell. He did not die on the spot. But no one stepped forward to help him as they feared getting into legal trouble as this was an accident case.

The widow of a 25-year-old Nepali man who worked in Saudi Arabia for two years said:

After my husband got electrocuted at work, he collapsed and was taken to the hospital. A few months later, we were relieved to hear that he had regained consciousness, but then we were again suddenly informed about his death. Despite the death due to work-related causes, the death is officially classified as natural death. Furthermore, we did not receive the dead body of my husband, but were instead informed that his last rites were already done in Saudi Arabia itself without our permission. This has put us in further pain. We believe all this was an elaborate plan to deprive us of compensation. There are so many questions unanswered.... Who gave them permission to bury [my husband] instead of repatriating [his] body? Witnesses say that the death was caused by electrocution....

The widow of a 27-year-old Bangladeshi who worked in Saudi Arabia for four and a half years said:

Several colleagues were present when he [my husband] was electrocuted. They described how he was working near electrical wiring when a sudden electric shock caused him to collapse. Despite attempts to revive him, he was declared dead at the scene.

The widow of a 46-year-old Bangladeshi man who worked in construction in Saudi Arabia for two years said:

According to his colleagues and the foreman, he noticed a mechanical issue with the machine he was operating. He turned off the machine to fix it and was trying to remove a stone that was stuck inside when someone accidentally turned the machine back on. His head got caught inside, and he died on the spot. When his body arrived in Bangladesh, we saw that his head was separated from his body. The description provided by his colleagues matched the condition of his body, so I had no choice but to believe the incident. However, I cannot say whether the investigation into the accident was thorough or not. When we received his body, I wanted to hold him one last time, but it wasn't possible. Seeing him in that state, I lost consciousness.

The widow of a 43-year-old Bangladeshi man who cut concrete blocks in Saudi Arabia for two years said:

He had no prior experience operating this type of giant machine. Maybe the blade got jammed but he did not notice that the blade was running in the upper side. He put his head inside the machine when the blade suddenly started running. At that point his head got cut by that blade and became detached from the body. He died on the spot. The Police came and took the body. I only know what happened through words. It was not possible for me to fact check the cause of death from Bangladesh. 

Multiple families of migrant workers told Human Rights Watch that they faced active hurdles from their deceased family member's employer to repatriate their bodies.

The widow of a 48-year-old Bangladeshi man who worked in construction in Saudi Arabia for over two decades said:

Initially, the people from the company proposed to bury my husband's body in Saudi Arabia and assured us of various company facilities in return. But when we wanted to bring my husband's body to Bangladesh and bury him here, the company said that we will have to bear all the expenses of bringing the body.... All these expenses were borne by our family.

The widow of a 46-year-old Bangladeshi man who worked in construction in Saudi Arabia for two years said:

The Saudi Kafil [sponsor] wanted to bury my husband in Saudi Arabia, but I did not give consent. I wanted to bring him back to see him one last time. The Kafil did not provide any financial assistance. It helped that my relatives were in Saudi Arabia as they put their heart and soul to ensure my husband's dead body was repatriated. To do so, my relatives contributed 1,000 Saudi rials (US$265) and also an additional SAR4,000 ($1065) from my husband's colleagues.... The Kafil [sponsor] did not provide any compensation or insurance.

The widow of a 44-year-old Bangladeshi who worked in Saudi Arabia as a plumber for over two decades said:

During the time of death, the company kept calling me and offered various financial assistance in exchange of burying my husband in Saudi Arabia itself. They insisted that I not take the body back. They promised to send me 800,000 Bangladeshi Taka (US$6584), my husbands' outstanding salary, and a monthly allowance for my children's education, but I insisted on bringing his body to Bangladesh.

The widow of a 32-year-old Bangladeshi laborer who died due to electric shocks said:

My husband's body arrived in Bangladesh about three months after his death. The company's foreman kept trying to convince me in various ways that if I did not get the body repatriated, I would get many benefits from the company. He said the company would even help us with our monthly expenses, children's education fees etc. When we did not agree to bury the body in Saudi Arabia, the foreman himself contacted the company and brought the body to Bangladesh.

Saudi Arabia's GOSI covers injuries or deaths that are attributed to work-related accidents. This mandatory insurance is based on a 2 percent salary contribution, and surviving family members of deceased get 84 months of salary with a maximum of 330,000 Saudi rials (US$88,000).

Most deaths in Saudi Arabia are attributed to non-work-related reasons including "natural causes" without proper investigation, which deprives surviving members of compensation. However, Human Rights Watch research shows that even when migrant workers die in work-related accidents that are certified as such in the death certificates, families often face significant challenges and delays in accessing compensation.

The last resort for many returning migrant workers and their families are welfare programs set up by their own governments especially for abuses resulting in death and injury. Contributory Migrant Welfare Funds, which are largely funded by contributions from migrants, are commonly used in many countries of origin to fund such welfare programs. However, such support is often conditioned on valid labor permits, which not all migrant workers possess. Moreover, origin countries' level and comprehensiveness of support to migrant workers varies significantly.

The widow of a 28-year-old Nepali road construction worker who died after being hit by a heavy vehicle said:

I received 700,000 Indian rupees (US$8,065) from the Nepal Government as compensation and 1,400,000 Indian rupees ($16,130) from the [Nepali] insurance company. I faced many hurdles to receive the compensation from Saudi Arabia. My brother-in-law took the lead. It took two years to process, and I had to visit multiple offices. The paperwork was burdensome.... It was clear that I could not manage the compensation process on my own. My brother-in-law then appealed to social workers who put pressure on the Nepali embassy in Saudi Arabia. It is only after their frequent follow-up that we finally received compensation in my son's and my bank accounts separately.... Without [compensation], we would not have been able to manage our expenses....

The brother of a deceased Nepali worker who fought for compensation on behalf of his sister-in-law said:

We received compensation from GOSI for my brother's death after 15 years. I was determined to get compensation so kept following up consistently. Someone else would not have been able to do the same. My family members told me to give up, but I was determined to get the compensation at any cost. If required, I was ready to go to Saudi Arabia to fight my case. But at least we received the money: it is better than not receiving anything.... It has provided some relief.

The wife of a 34-year-old deceased Nepali worker who died in a road accident said:

I have saved the compensation amount in my bank account, and I am trying not to use it. I need to save it for my children's future. I am trying to manage my household expenses through subsistence agriculture, cash transfer for widows from the Nepali government, and scholarships for children of deceased migrants through the Foreign Employment Board [scholarship scheme funded by the contributory migrant welfare fund].

The widow of 44-year-old Bangladeshi who worked in Saudi Arabia as a plumber for over two decades said:

I didn't receive much financial help when the body arrived, but three months later, the Bangladesh government provided me with 350,000 Bangladeshi taka (US$2879). Neither the Saudi government nor the company provided any financial assistance. The company had previously promised to help me, but I never received any support.

The widow of 26-year-old Bangladeshi who worked in Saudi Arabia as a construction worker for over five years before being crushed to death by a loader said:

It took over three months to bring his body back to Bangladesh due to bureaucratic delays and the employer's refusal to take responsibility.... The company did not pay any overdue wages, end-of-service benefits or additional compensation despite repeated requests. We received 300,000 Bangladeshi taka (US$2,466) from the government under the Expatriates' Welfare Fund....

The widow of a 32-year-old Bangladeshi laborer who died due to electric shock said:

At the time of his death, there was one month's unpaid salary left which the company later sent to us. But we did not get back any of the money that he had in the bank nor his other belongings.... We got 35,000 Bangladeshi taka (US$287) from the Bangladeshi government when we received the body and again BDT300,000 ($2,466), and his friends from work also sent us BDT150,000 ($1,233) as support. Other than the salary dues, the company did not provide any remaining benefits or insurance money....

The widow of a 44-year-old Indian plumber who died due to "natural cause," which the family does not believe, said:

The company paid 300,000 Indian rupees (US$3,511). We are not sure whether the money is pending salary or end of service benefits or compensation....We had talked to Rajeev [another migrant worker in the company] who is the only communicator to the family from the company. He said the company is not willing to give any additional money. The company owes us more money as death compensation since it is a work site death.

The widow of a 45-year-old Nepali man who worked in Saudi Arabia as laborer in outdoor road construction for over 11 years said:

I begged the company multiple times for insurance money. But they say it is not in their rules as they do not have life insurance policy, just accidental insurance. Our case is not considered work-related accident. Do you have to fall or be hit by a stone or be cut by a machine during work? He fainted because of high work pressure. I think the investigation into this case was incomplete. We are compelled to take their word at face value. We don't have the ability to go there [Saudi Arabia] to better understand the situation. The compensation money would have worked like oxygen for us. We also did not receive compensation from Nepal's government. His labor approval had expired so he was not eligible for compensation from the welfare fund or insurance.

Source: Human Rights Watch