Trapped by design: Dhigurah fire exposes migrant worker housing crisis

Videos from the scene show flames raging above tin roofs. Voices shout over each other in Dhivehi and Bangla, overlapping and urgent. A group of workers heave a body onto a rashu pickup and speed away in the dark. 

The labour quarters housed workers from a construction company undertaking several private projects on the island, Ibrahim Usman, Dhigurah council president, told the Maldives Independent. It was unclear which company employed the trapped workers. 

The Dhigurah fire was not an isolated incident. In November 2022, a deadly fire killed 10 expatriates in cramped lodgings above a garage in Malé. The Neelan Fihaara fire in 2023 displaced over 166 migrant workers. A year later, the Gaamagu café fire displaced over 50 migrants.

"This incident [in Dhigurah] is part of a troubling pattern in which migrant worker safety is consistently overlooked, and those responsible for ensuring safe living and working conditions face little accountability. As a result, migrant workers’ basic rights to life, safety, and dignity continue to be violated in a system where justice is rarely delivered," Transparency Maldives and a group of concerned NGOs observed on Tuesday, drawing parallels to the other cases in recent years.

Migrant workers are often housed in overcrowded and inhumane conditions in tightly packed rooms without access to adequate sanitation, the NGOs noted. 

“They are also frequently being housed in spaces unfit for human habitation, including unsafe building sites, mixed-used buildings such as small spaces above garages, cafés, storage areas or workplaces containing hazardous equipment and industrial substances.”

Both the Occupational Safety and Health Act and regulations on minimum standards for expatriate employees require employers to provide safe accommodation, the NGOs said, calling on the government to investigate the fire and to ensure that the victims and their families are compensated.

It also called on the Labor Relations Authority to proactively monitor worker accommodations and for other regulatory bodies to review compliance with rules and laws. 

Aside from the dangerous and inappropriate living conditions of migrant workers, the fire highlighted the lack of administrative and technical support for rules and regulations made to ensure fire safety, the Architect’s Association of Maldives said on Wednesday.

The association called for the introduction of a “fire safety code” to strengthen the regulatory framework for building codes. The current measures are reactive as they are solely aimed at responding to a fire rather than preventing one, the association noted.

On the night of the incident in Dhigurah, police officers arrived at the scene after the fire was reported at 1:57am. Officers had to blast open a wall with the help of island residents, police said. They rescued seven people from the building and took them to the health centre. Five were pronounced dead upon arrival. Two were critically injured and affected by smoke. Two others were provided psychosocial support at the health centre. 

A team from Major Crime Investigations was dispatched to Dhigurah to take over the investigation. 

The Bangladesh High Commission in Malé identified the deceased as Taj Uddin Islam, Md. Sadar Ali, Md. Robin Molla, Shafiqul Islam and Md. Nirnabi Sarker. The two injured are Jamal Uddin and Saddam Hossain. They were brought to Malé and placed on ventilator support at the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital. 

The High Commission promised that the bodies of the deceased would be sent back to their families. The concerned company has been asked to ensure appropriate compensation for the deceased workers, it said.

All of the bodies had been sent back to Bangladesh as of Thursday, an official from the High Commission told the Maldives Independent.

The Human Rights Commission said it was “closely monitoring the welfare of the injured individuals and conducting a thorough assessment to determine any potential human rights concerns." On Tuesday, President Dr Mohamed Muizzu sent a letter of condolence to Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman. The Bangladeshi community in the Maldives plays a valuable role in society, he said in the letter, adding that he had instructed authorities to investigate the matter and “take every necessary step to prevent an incident of this scale from occurring again."