Deaths, Labor Abuses Reported at Russia’s World Cup Sites

More than 17 construction workers have died and others have faced labor abuses and exploitation while building stadiums for Russia’s 2018 World Cup, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch. “FIFA is still in its post-corruption catharsis, but this feels, unfortunately, like more of the same,” said Jane Buchanan, a researcher on Russia and author of the 34-page Human Rights Watch account, referring to the soccer governing body’s vast 2015 scandal. The report is to be made public Wednesday, and is the most comprehensive analysis so far of the labor situation. Soccer’s World Cup will be played over 12 stadiums and 11 cities across Russia in June 2018. At least 70 workers died during construction for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. “It should be a wake-up call,” said Ambet Yuson, the general secretary of a global builders trade union that tracked the casualties. “They are coming from the experience in Sochi. They should learn from that. If you go back to Sochi, most of the accidents and fatalities happened toward the end of construction. They should know better by this time.”