Labour villas or fire traps?

Despite the recent fire in the Naif area, many Asian workers continue to live in the same dismally unsafe old villa-style buildings.

Eleven people had died and 14 injured in the August 26 fire that destroyed a two-storey structure in the Naif area in Deira.

Today, there are four more old buildings near the fire site, connected through narrow bylanes that are littered with cardboard boxes, discarded cans and bottles amid stagnant pools of water.

Illegal status

According to workers there, they are compelled to stay in such conditions due to financial crisis and their illegal status.

"We came to Dubai after paying Dh10,000 to the agents. Despite the bad living conditions here, we do not want to return to India till we recover this amount and make some savings," most workers, who hailed from India’s Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan states, said.

The workers who earn Dh350 a month said bed spaces were selling for Dh5 per day. Some others sleep in car parks.

"We were on night shift near Dubai Marina when the fire occurred and when we returned, the police had cordoned off our rooms. We have money and clothes inside the rooms, but whenever we request the policemen on guard there, we are told to leave and forget our things. We just hang around the site, hoping that local officials will permit us to retrieve our belongings," K. Govinda Swamy and Swami Dorai said on behalf of a group of 20 workers.

Cheap accommodation

Although the area hosts several multi-storey buildings and shopping arcades, the old buildings that are still used as cheap private labour accommodation strike a discordant note.

Uma Padmanabhan, a social worker who has returned from the fire victims’ villages in Andhra Pradesh, said: "The old buildings have wooden components and are fire hazards... I have told workers from Telangana, Nizamabad and Karimnagar districts to return home if they are illegal as the Indian Consulate is ready to issue them emergency certificates and offer them all assistance. Legal workers must demand clean and safe accommodation from their companies."

Ajitha Kumar, Consul for Labour and Welfare at the Indian Consulate, said workers made homeless by the fire were in temporary accommodation.