West Ham star Nayef Aguerd chas launched an appeal for blood donors and stepped forward himself to aid earthquake hit Morocco.
The £30million defender who reached the World Cup semifinals in Qatar with Morocco last December, and was born in Kenitra, is hoping to lead by example by giving blood.
The 27-year-old Muslim urged others to step forward and donate urgently needed blood to help save lives adding that ‘God gave health and gave rewards.’
Friday’s 6.8-magnitude quake struck 72 kilometres (45 miles) southwest of the tourist hub of Marrakesh, wiping out entire villages in the hills of the Atlas mountains. On Sunday an aftershock of magnitude 4.5 rattled in the same region.
The first foreign rescuers flew in to help after the North African country’s strongest-ever quake killed at least 2,122 people and injured more than 2,400, many seriously, according to official figures updated late on Sunday.
West Ham star Nayef Aguerd has launched an appeal for blood donors and stepped forward himself to aid earthquake hit Morocco. He is pictured during the World Cup last November
The 27-year-old Muslim urged others to step forward and donate urgently needed blood to help save lives adding that ‘God gave health and gave rewards’
Mr Aguerd posted a picture of himself to his 2.6 million Instagram followers, in his Moroccan, football shirt giving blood, hours after the disaster, struck the country, claiming at least 2000 lives.
His West Ham team mate Thilo Kehrer backed his appeal and sent a supportive message as did his fellow international Chafik Fouad.
Mr Aguerd is in Morocco with the Atlas Lions for matches with Liberia and Burkina Faso.
The mountain village of Tafeghaghte, 60 kilometres from Marrakesh, was almost entirely destroyed by the quake, with very few buildings still standing.
Using heavy equipment and even their bare hands, civilian rescuers and members of Morocco’s armed forces searched for survivors and the bodies of the dead.
Rescuers recovered one body from the ruins of a house. Four others were still buried there, residents said.
‘Everyone is gone! My heart is broken. I am inconsolable,’ cried Zahra Benbrik, 62, who said she had lost 18 relatives, with only the body of her brother still trapped.
‘I want them to hurry and get him out so I can mourn in peace,’ she said.
Many houses in remote mountain villages were built from mud bricks.
