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Officials and players of rugby in the country under the umbrella of the Ghana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) have donated blood to support victims of the twin disaster which occurred on June 3.

The donation exercise was heavily participated as a substantial volume of blood was collected by medical staff from the National Blood Service.

Over 50 individuals participated in the exercise and a few Muslims who couldn’t donate due to their annual Ramadan period of fasting and prayers were present in solidarity to offer support and comfort to some affected families who were present at the event organized at the residence of Mr. Herbert Mensah, the President of GRFU.

Several of the families who interacted with Mr. Mensah and some officials were distraught with grief as they recounted the dreadful scenes on the day of the disaster.

Ghana Rugby also donated a cash amount and other items to the victims and some families who lost their loved ones.

Mr. Mensah was saddened by the disaster when he saw images and videos of the sad incident and its aftermath in the news at the time. He wasn’t in the country to witness first hand but was moved to provide some relief for the victims.

Scenes from the incident struck him like that of the May 9th stadium disaster when he was then the Chairman of Kumasi Asante Kotoko. He also made some cash donations and applauded the initiative of the Rugby team to volunteer blood.

“The amount of money is not important, what matters is that it is coming from the heart. We are not government, I have no other motivation, our only interest is to show you that there are people in the system who do care for you,” Mr. Mensah disclosed emotionally.

He added that: “These are some of the great guys from Ghana rugby. When they heard about the incident; they wanted to donate blood to help other people so they donated blood today. Some of them have started worship, today is the beginning of Ramadan so before Allah it is a very important day. Despite that they are here today to come and share their love, understanding and special prayers for you”.

An executive member of the GRFU, Mr. Abdul Aziz Issah who spoke in an interview commended the leadership of Ghana Rugby and participants who made the event successful. He says the exercise is to show love and compassion to the affected people.

“You cannot pay for the grieve that has overtaken them [victims] but at least you can show them some love and that is the main reason for putting this program together. We know that when things like this happen the hospitals normally run out of blood so we organized some group of people to see whether we can get blood to fill our blood banks for the surviving victims to get enough supply”.

The Principal Blood Donation Recruitment Officer at the National Blood Transfusion Centre in Accra, Mr. Gambo Iddris Wangabi was grateful to Mr. Mensah and Ghana Rugby. He is encouraging more individuals and corporate bodies to follow the example of the rugby players to ensure that no life is lost at any of the hospitals in the country as a result of blood shortage.