As Dubai’s food delivery booms, dangers and casualties mount

By ISABEL DEBRE
Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Advocates and workers say that casualties among food delivery riders are mounting in Dubai as the pandemic accelerates a boom in customer demand. The trend has transformed the city’s streets and drawn thousands of desperate riders, predominantly Pakistanis, into the high-risk, lightly regulated and sometimes-fatal work. The conditions of food couriers around the world have worsened during the pandemic. The job is particularly precarious in the glimmering sheikhdom of Dubai, which runs on low-paid migrant labor from Africa and Asia. Police have not released a road crash count for 2020 and declined to comment on the cases. But over a dozen workers described the growing hazards.