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Jalil is among half a million Bangladeshis, many of them young, healthy men, who left their families to find work in Saudi Arabia in 2023...

Yet for thousands, the trip is a one-way ticket. Between 2008 and 2022, at least 13,685 Bangladeshis died in Saudi Arabia, according to Bangladeshi government records. In 2022 alone, 1,502 died, a rate of more than four a day.

It is unclear whether the death rate is within the expected range given the large numbers of Bangladeshis who migrate to Saudi Arabia.

Yet a Guardian investigation has found that most of the deaths appear to be unexplained, attributed on death certificates issued by the Saudi authorities to “natural causes”, or ascribed terms such as “cardiac arrest” or “respiratory arrest”, suggesting that no attempt has been made to investigate the underlying causes.

According to official records, between January and October 2022, 76% of deaths of Bangladeshis in Saudi Arabia were recorded as “natural” by the Bangladeshi authorities, based on documents provided by the Saudi authorities...

“[Terms such as] ‘cardiac arrest’ provide no information on the underlying cause of death and should not appear on a death certificate,” says a report on migrant worker deaths in the Gulf by the human rights group FairSquare, which estimated that more than 50% of migrant worker deaths in the Gulf are unexplained.

Instead, human rights groups say that other factors such as harsh working and living conditions, exploitation, stress and heatstroke could be contributing to the mortality rate...

They say that Fifa, which faced severe pressure to explain the deaths and mistreatment of migrant workers involved in preparations for the World Cup in Qatar, must urgently demand that Saudi Arabia comply with internationally recognised human rights standards before anointing the Gulf kingdom as the host of the 2034 tournament.

“If Fifa has learned anything from Qatar it should be that it must pay close attention to human rights risks in potential host countries before awarding them the World Cup,” says Ella Knight, Amnesty International’s migrant labour rights researcher...

Fifa and the Bangladeshi government did not respond to requests to comment...