Belgian Supermarket Worker Dies of COVID-19 After Mask Ban, Leaving Two Young Children

In this chain of stores, it was strictly forbidden for staff to wear masks and gloves, until March 20, on the grounds that "it scares the customers too much". Unfortunately, this ban has now made little Lina, barely 17 months old, and her brother Seyf, soon to be 7 years old, fatherless, reports La Dernière Heure. Their father, Mohamed Nahi, was infected with covid-19 ten days earlier and succumbed to it last Thursday. According to Hatim, his brother-in-law, Mohamed had been suffering for several days and had been diagnosed positive for covid-19 on Tuesday, March 24. Given his relatively stable condition, with his "respiratory faculties only impaired by 10%," the medical staff asked him "to stay at home and treat himself with Dafalgan and cough syrup," his brother-in-law said.

Confined at home with Samia, his wife who was caring for him, Mohamed died overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, due to complications. "He was no longer breathing and blue foam was coming out of his mouth and nose. His skin was scaly," his wife confided. She had called the emergency services in vain. "But it was over for the big guy of 1.94 meters, "who didn’t smoke and didn’t drink, strictly respected the confinement," according to Hatim’s words.

At the age of 32, Mohamed Nahi was a victim of his service manager’s negligence. He was buried on Friday afternoon in Schaerbeek, with only his brother-in-law Hatim and the imam present. "My sister, their children, our parents had to stay confined at home, as a precaution," the brother-in-law recounts, who intends to take legal action on the advice of Abdelhadi Amrani and Carine Liekendael, their lawyers.

Faced with this tragedy, Colruyt assured on Friday that it was "gathering information on the details of these events. Our priority now is to respond to the needs of the employees concerned and we will continue to communicate when we have more relevant details".