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

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Running late, the delivery driver threaded his motorcycle around lurching cars, speeding against time and traffic to satisfy a customer’s burger craving — the day's last delivery in Dubai.

Moments later, a car sideswiped him.

The collision catapulted Mohammed Ifran off his bike and smashed him into the street, instantly killing the 21-year-old as he was delivering a meal worth some $8. After giving up farming in Pakistan, he had been working in Dubai as a contractor for Talabat, an online food delivery app popular in the United Arab Emirates.

“His family's only source of happiness, gone," said a fellow courier in the working-class district of Deira, who declined to give his name for fear of reprisals.

Ifran's June death represents just one in a growing number of casualties among food delivery riders in Dubai, workers and advocates say, as the pandemic pushed millions of people indoors and accelerated a surge in app-based orders.

The boom has transformed Dubai’s streets and stores and drawn thousands of desperate riders, predominantly Pakistanis, into the high-risk, lightly regulated and sometimes-fatal work. With most paid between $2 to $3 per delivery rather than a fixed salary, riders race in the scorching heat to keep pace with a relentless rush of orders.

The conditions of couriers worldwide, long perilous, worsened during the pandemic as riders became essential to feeding cities and faced new risks of coronavirus exposure. But in Dubai, the United Arab Emirate’s glimmering sheikhdom that runs on low-paid migrant labor from Africa and Asia, the job can be particularly precarious.

At the mercy of visa sponsors, workers in Dubai have few protections. To reduce cost, companies like London-based Deliveroo outsource bikes, logistics...