Vacant Housing Near World Cup Sparks Online Buzz: 'Different Side of Qatar'

While much of the world's attention remains fixed on the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, areas surrounding the tournament's main stadium have caught the internet's eye.

Thanks to social media influencers and TikTok creators like Rob Dawley, soccer fans around the world were granted virtual access to the sights, sounds and seemingly secret locations associated with one of the biggest sporting events in the world.

Over the past weeks, Dawley has documented his journey from Manchester, England, to Doha, posting numerous videos displaying a variety of Qatari accommodations and activities available to World Cup attendees.

But on November 24, Dawley strayed from the beaten path to show followers a recent expedition to Mesaieed, an industrial city roughly 20 miles from Doha.

"This morning, I left my hotel with the intention of getting out into the sticks and showing people a completely different side of Qatar," Dawley began. "One that the media won't show you."

After a brief clip showing his commute from Doha to Mesaieed, Dawley said he stopped at the gates of a migrant camp, but was denied access to look around.

He was then brought to the city center, where he found a block of entirely empty apartment buildings, which, according to a pair of security guards, housed migrant workers responsible for constructing World Cup stadiums across Qatar.

"I couldn't believe what I was seeing," Dawley said. "Twenty-five to 30 completely abandoned tower blocks with 'no-entry' signs everywhere. You could not get on the premises.

"Then I met this man," he added. "A security guard in the right place at the right time offered me my own little private tour of these buildings."

Continuing to explain that building security told him the buildings were home to migrant workers, Dawley included clips of multiple apartments, and relayed security's estimate that each unit housed around 10 people during construction.

Captioned, "Ever wondered what it was like living in Qatar as a migrant worker[?]," the video has racked up more than 107,000 likes and has been viewed more than 1.3 million times.

Since Qatar was granted the 2022 FIFA World Cup, numerous organizations have expressed concern for those tasked with constructing seven new, state-of-the-art soccer stadiums and surrounding fan areas.

Amnesty International, a non-governmental organization focused on human rights, reports that immigrants from Bangladesh, India and Nepal were exploited throughout the construction process, frequently subjected to "appalling" living conditions, misinformation about expected salaries and labor coerced by the fear of deportation.

And while the Associated Press reports that data published by Qatar's Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy initially indicated that just 40 workers had died between 2014 and 2021—37 of which were reported to have died due to non-work incidents—recent revelations have indicated otherwise.

During an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan, Supreme Committee Secretary-General Hassan al-Thawadi said actual death figures were in the hundreds, estimating that "between 400 and 500" workers lost their lives during the construction period.

Hours after al-Thawadi's remark, the United Nations urged Qatar to open a deeper investigation into the exploitation and abuse associated with World Cup construction.

However, in a previous statement to Newsweek, a spokesperson for Qatar's Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy doubled down, saying that al-Thawadi's comment to Morgan was taken out of context, and that the "between 400 and 500" figure references total work-related fatalities between 2014 and 2021 for both Qatari and non-Qatari workers.

Despite the continued controversy surrounding this year's World Cup, and a 2021 Amnesty International report that indicated more than 15,000 deaths occurred during construction, TikTok users responding to Dawley were interested to see a part of Qatar not shown on TV.

"Honestly great video," one commenter wrote. "Really impressed with this.

"I actually visited Qatar last year [but] never had the opportunity to see this," they added.

But not all commenters were as intrigued, and questioned the validity of the video.

"Bro, these were family apartments," one interjected. "I've been living in Qatar since [the] 90s and had friends who stayed in these with their families."

"[I ] was born here," another commenter echoed. "This has nothing to do with the World Cup stadiums."

"Bro," another wrote. "[Wait] 'til you get to hear from the migrant workers themselves."

Newsweek has reached out to Dawley and Amnesty International for comment.