Kuwaiti police arrest man who aided quarantine zone breach
Health ministry denies discharging COVID-19 patient
KUWAIT: A man who smuggled an individual out of the quarantined area of Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh has been apprehended by police, Kuwaiti authorities said on Sunday. The search and arrest of the suspect, an Arab national, was carried out after a video was leaked on social media showing a man leading another on a motorcycle out of the area, an Interior Ministry statement read. The suspect, who has since confessed to the charges, is employed at a co-operative society supermarket in the southern Mubarak Al-Kabeer governorate. He has been referred to the public prosecutor’s office as a search is underway for the other runaway individual. The Ministry of Interior warned that it would not be dissuaded from applying the law on those caught in violation of isolation measures set by authorities in the public interest.
Meanwhile, an Egyptian man was found stabbed to death in Kuwait, Al-Rai reported on Sunday. “A pedestrian found the dead body of the Egyptian national in an under-construction house in Dasma,” the newspaper said, adding that police launched an investigation and the dead body was sent to the forensic department. The Egyptian laborers in Kuwait occupied the second rank in the number of foreign workers with 10,000 workers, constituting 20.8 percent of the total expatriate labor force. Egypt comes after India, whose nationals form 917,000 Indian workers, according to a report by Al Shall, Financial and Economic Consulting company in April 2020.
In other news, the Ministry of Health (MOH) commented on a video that recently circulated on social media showing two men who, according to the person who recorded the video, were tested positive for COVID-19 at a local polyclinic and that one was hospitalized while the other was discharged. MOH explained that, when tested at the clinic, both patients showed respiratory disorder symptoms but none was confirmed as a positive COVID-19 case. The ministry added that both patients were referred to the area hospital for further tests. Further, MOH noted that the expat referred to in the video was fully tested at the hospital, has initially tested negative, and is currently quarantined.
Accordingly, MOH urges the public to be more accurate prior to publication of unconfirmed reports, to convey complaints and remarks only through the rightful accredited channels and avoid spreading stories that would cause panic, warning that all needed legal actions would be taken against whomever spreads false allegations.