The Egyptian Foreign Ministry in Cairo (File photo: Reuters)
CAIRO - 6 December 2017: A viral video on social media that showed an Egyptian citizen being beaten by a Kuwaiti citizen in Kuwait on Tuesday aroused public anger in Egypt.
The Egyptian Consulate in Kuwait issued a statement on Wednesday regarding the attack on an Egyptian citizen, Waheed Mahmoud Rifai, who is a shop attendant in Kuwait, and who was beaten brutally by a Kuwaiti citizen until he fainted. Rifai was then taken to “Al-Sabah” hospital.
The consulate said in its statement that the Egyptian citizen was released from the intensive care room on Wednesday morning, confirming that his condition is now stable.
Egypt’s Immigration Minister Nabila Makram announced, in a telephone call on ON Live channel, that she will be travelling to Kuwait on Thursday, after the approval of Mostafa Madbouly, acting prime minister, to check on the young Egyptian who was assaulted and to follow up on the details of the incident.
Such individual incidents “will not affect the nature of good relations between the Egyptian and Kuwaiti people,” stressed Makram.
During her visit to the hospital to check on the assaulted Egyptian citizen on Wednesday, Ambassador Howayda Essam, consul of Egypt in Kuwait, stressed that the Egyptian Consulate in Kuwait will offer Rifai all the necessary support until his health improves and that he will get all his legal rights .
The Egyptian Consulate in Kuwait confirmed that the security authorities in Kuwait arrested the person responsible for the assault and that they will proceed with the investigation procedure.
Ahmed Abu Zeid, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, posted on Twitter Wednesday, saying: “Thank God you got out of the ICU Waheed Mahmoud Rifai. The Egyptian Embassy and Consulate in Kuwait will remain by your side until you are fully recovered, get your rights and the offender is held accountable. My sincere thanks go to the Kuwaiti authorities for their efforts.”
Ambassador Khaled Rizk, assistant foreign minister for consular affairs and expatriate Egyptians said in a press statement that the Egyptian Consulate in Kuwait has been closely following the assault on the Egyptian citizen, confirming that the Egyptian Consulate had sent representatives to the hospital to make sure that Rifai was alright.
This is not the first incident of its kind, in 2016 photos of an Egyptian citizen who was also assaulted in his workplace in Amman, Jordan by a group of Jordanians surfaced on social media.
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