Dubai Municipality has conducted a wide-ranging inspection of workers’ accommodations. Pawan Singh / The National
DUBAI // More than 400 labour camps in Dubai are facing closure for failing to meet minimum health and fire safety standards.
The clampdown comes after 11 men died in an early morning fire on Tuesday that engulfed a 30-room villa complex illegally housing up to 500 labourers.
A senior Dubai Municipality official said 40 per cent of 1,033 permanent and temporary labour camps risked closure.
Some of the labour camps inspected face immediate closure, while others have been issued with probation periods ranging from three months to one year.
Three-month eviction notices have also been issued to a number of camps that failed basic health and fire safety standards set by the municipality.
During this week’s blaze, blocked exits meant a number of the labourers, many of them on fire, had to jump from windows to escape.
Two leaseholders of the villa were later arrested for violating Dubai’s health and safety regulations.
On-site labour camps are temporary accommodations erected around building sites. (This is not true, and a blatant lie. These camps, were there for years, and many have schools and are major slums. Human rights abuses abound, and even using the term “labour camps” reeks of old Nazi terms.-comments by Allyson Rowen Taylor-not included in the regular article)
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