- The worker has been in ICU since Saturday morning
- He is said to have fallen off the eighth floor of a building at the Lusail Stadium
- Qatar say they have launched investigations into the death
A 24-year old Kenyan security guard working at the Lusail Stadium in Doha, Qatar, has died after fighting for his life over the last three days in ICU following a fatal fall after Friday’s World Cup quarter final between Argentina and Netherlands.
According to Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, the body mandated to organize and run the FIFA World Cup, the Kenyan, identified as John Njau Kibe, suffered a serious fall and was attended to by stadium medical teams.
They have further said he was provided with emergency treatment before he was transferred to Hamad Medical Hospital’s intensive care unit via ambulance.
The statement sent out on Wednesday evening says; “We regret to announce that, despite the efforts of the medical team, he sadly passed away in hospital on Tuesday 13 December, after being in the intensive care unit for three days,”
Next of kin already informed
“His next of kin have been informed. We send our sincere condolences to his family, colleagues and friends during this difficult time.”
The Council said that Qatar’s tournament organisers are investigating the circumstances leading to the fall as a matter of urgency and will provide further information pending the outcome of the investigation.
“We will also ensure that his family receive all outstanding dues and monies owed,” the statement added.
There is a myriad of Kenyans working across various amenities at the World Cup, having been recruited to cash in on the windfall that comes with the World Cup. Most of them are on three-month contracts that takes them a month before the tournament and a month after.
The death of the Kenyan adds on to a list of may fatalities that have been reported especially before the tournament.
Organisers had said before the latest fatality that there had been 37 deaths of World Cup workers, but only three involving “work-related” accidents.
Migrant workers dying
Rights groups have said thousands of foreign migrant workers have died on construction projects across Qatar over the past decade and demanded that football’s world governing body FIFA and the government launch a special compensation fund.
The government has said its existing fund has already paid out more than 350 million dollars and would handle any future claims.
The family of the Kenyan worker have meanwhile asked for comprehensive investigations into the incident, saying they could also not understand the circumstances that their kin died.
Coincidentally, the death happened on the same stadium that American journalist Grant Wahl died in while covering the highly feisty quarter final match. Wahl collapsed just after the regulation 90-minutes, and his last tweet was immediately after Netherlands’ late equalizer.
Wahl suffered heart attack in Lusail
Wahl was said to have suffered from a heart attack. According to his wife, a postmortem conducted in the United States showed that he had suffered “slowly growing, undetected ascending aortic aneurysm.”
An aortic aneurysm is a rupture of the aorta, the major blood vessel carrying blood away from the heart.
In a message published on Wahl’s Substack page, his wife Celine Gounder said; “The chest pressure he experienced shortly before his death may have represented the initial symptoms. No amount of CPR or shocks would have saved him.”
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