Expat workers live in cargo containers in Dubai

Dubai, Nov 26 (UNI) More than 2000 expatriate workers including scores from India were forced to live in cargo containers in Al Awir in the outskirts of Dubai after being shifted from proper company accommodation in another area.

Some 16 workers live in each container, sleeping on bunk beds and there were about hundred containers, 40 feet in length, kept in rows in two labour camps, media reports said.

There is hardly any room for the workers to move about in the containers which have been given a wooden finish. The container rooms are equipped a small table, pots and pans and a television set.

''Currently we are building villas after which we will be shifted.

All that the company needs to do is to shift the containers along with us,'' a worker told Gulf News.

Each room has an exhaust fan and an air-conditioner, and a fire-extinguisher for every three containers. There are toilet and bathroom facilities in different containers. A separate container is exclusively kept for workers reporting sick.

Electricity is provided by a generator that runs 24 hours, and drinking water is brought in by tankers. Their plight was first brought to light by 'Arabia' an Evening Daily.

The entire premises is fenced and visitors are only allowed in if they submit their labour card to the security guard at the main gate. The majority of the workers living there are Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis while the security guards are all Nepalese.

Recently the US based Human Rights Watch in a 71-page report, 'Building Towers, Cheating Workers,' highlighted serious abuses of construction workers by employers in the UAE.

UNI XC YA ht1325